Here and Now
by MzElektra
Summary: It's been 5 years since the end of the war, but less than a week since Rita Skeeter outed Harry on the front page of The Prophet — and made some rather scandalous insinuations about him and his blond former nemesis. A chance (or is it?) encounter on a street corner reveals just how much has changed… and what remains the same. A large courgette & Ed Kowalczyk make things interesting


It was just Harry's luck that the first time he should see Draco Malfoy after the infamous _Prophet_ article was on his way home from Sainsbury's, carrying nothing but a plump, eleven inch courgette and a large bottle of olive oil in a thin, orange plastic sack.

Hermione had warned him that the tall, lean blond who'd been one of the banes of his school years was back from wherever he'd gone after the war (Harry knew exactly where he'd gone, he'd prevailed upon his acquaintance with Kingsley Shacklebolt to get a look at the Wizengamot's file on the Malfoys) and working at the Ministry.

In the newly established Muggle Affairs department, no less.

He had hoped that perhaps the Fates would smile on him this once and conspire to keep them from ever running into each other. London was, after all, a fairly big city and there was no earthly reason for their paths to cross. Harry didn't frequent Diagon or spend any time at the Ministry if he could help it. He'd sold Grimmauld years ago, after he and Gin had split, and purchased his stylish flat in Mayfair.

Which was where he was heading with his shopping when he turned the corner onto Half Moon Street and very nearly knocked himself out on Draco's still-pointy chin.

Harry stumbled back a step, barely managing to keep himself from tripping over his own feet and going arse over teakettle. He would have done anyway, thanks to an unseen dip in the sidewalk, if the man himself had not caught his elbow in one pale, elegant hand.

Draco's grip was firm as he steadied Harry, those unforgettable silver grey eyes slowly taking in his hopelessly wild black hair, scuffed trainers, faded Live concert tee, and worn blue jeans with the knees ripped out. He lingered for a moment on the grocery sack before returning that piercing gaze to Harry's face, one sharp blond brow arched. Harry's cheeks burned.

"Alright there, Potter?" Draco's wide, mobile mouth curled slightly at one end.

Harry swallowed past what felt like a snitch stuck in his throat. "Yeah, thanks."

He stepped carefully back, pulling his elbow free. Draco's fingers tightened briefly, as if he wanted to hold Harry still, but then he let go. Harry resisted the urge to rub the spot where Draco had grasped him. Despite how brief the touch had been, it was as if the cool press of those fingers lingered on his heated skin.

His heart bounced off his ribs like a rogue bludger. He twisted the bag handle around his fingertips, shifting from foot to foot.

"So… er… how've you been, Mal— er, Draco?"

He didn't know why he said 'Draco'. He'd never called the other man by his first name in the entire time they'd known each other, as far as he could recall. Harry could feel the blood burning in his throat and cheeks and knew he was no doubt the shade of one of the ripe tomatoes he'd used to start the sauce simmering away on his stove at home.

He almost expected Malfoy — not _Draco_ — to turn up his nose, sneer like he used to back at Hogwarts. Or maybe Harry was just hoping he would. Because wouldn't that be easier? He could go back to hating the pointy git and not… well, of course he didn't want to still _hate_ him. If he ever had done. It had been a long time since they were boys at school. They'd both lived through a war and grown up and Harry knew that there was more to Malfoy than just a spoiled rich twat.

But if he sneered, if he made fun, called Harry a queer or a pervert or something, then Harry could get angry and not feel…. Well. Just not _feel_.

Draco — sodding _Malfoy_ — didn't sniff at him or drawl a nasty retort. Instead, he _smiled_. Not a smirk or a grin. An honest to Merlin, warm, bloody _gorgeous_ smile. He might as well have socked Harry right in the solar plexus for the effect it had on his breathing.

"I've been well, thank you… Harry." He tilted his head a bit and the streetlight caught his white blond hair, glinting like sun on snow. "And yourself?"

Harry licked his lips, glancing up at the red and purple slashed summer sky and then further down Half Moon toward the bright blue of his front door. Draco stood still on the sidewalk, waiting for his response, chin up and a small, enigmatic smile on his face. He watched Harry watching him, pale hands tucked away in the pockets of his black slacks.

A pewter grey button down shirt with small jet buttons accentuated his surprisingly broad shoulders, toned arms, and lean chest. He'd rolled up the sleeves to his elbows, baring the smooth skin of his forearms. Where the Dark Mark had once marred the alabaster expanse of the left, a beautifully detailed, full-color Antipodean Opaleye with shimmering iridescent scales, breathing a trail of crimson flame was now wrapped around Draco's arm from wrist to elbow.

Harry glimpsed the stark lines of a tattoo on Draco's inner right forearm as well, curling slightly round to the front; but Draco's arm was turned just so, obscuring his view of it. He could detect only a few curving lines that, in the gathering dusk, resembled perhaps the bare branches of a tree.

His fingertips tingled with pins and needles from clutching the shopping bag so tight. Or so he told himself. It had nothing whatever to do with wanting to touch Draco's skin to see if the tattoos would move beneath his fingertips as he'd seen wizard tattoos do. Seamus had a surly bear on his shoulder that would roar when poked. Harry had never felt the urge to rub his palm over _that_.

He dragged his eyes from Draco's adorned arms, desperate to find something else to look at but unwilling for it to be the other man's face. He studied instead his gleaming black Oxfords, the crease of his slacks, the faint shimmer of his shirt fabric, and the single diamond chip winking in his left ear.

That seemed a safe spot to focus on, as surprising as the earring was, so Harry kept his gaze on where it nestled in the creamy curve of Draco's lobe.

"Good, Dr — er, Malfoy. B-brilliant, in fact."

Draco ducked his head, trying to catch Harry's eye. Harry chewed his lip, staring hard at the corner of Draco's jaw. The night seemed unaccountably quiet, as if he'd cast a Muffliato around them.

"Excellent," Draco said, and he sounded sincere. "Not at the Ministry these days, though. Whatever happened to being an Auror?"

The breeze shifted then, blowing from behind Draco, ruffling the long, silky strands of his hair over his forehead. He pushed it back with his left hand but the wind just mussed it again. The second time he left it, though he breathed a soft sigh.

Harry caught a whiff of oranges and cinnamon and swallowed the flood of saliva that filled his mouth.

A moment later, Draco's words penetrated the delicious fog and made Harry's spine stiffen. Was Malfoy taking the piss? Everyone knew he'd dropped out of Auror training just before completion. Anyone who had missed the news at the time had gotten a refresher course in Skeeter's latest 'exposé'. He mentally cursed the day he'd met Marcel Pamplemousse for the seven hundredth time.

"Got tired of chasing dark wizards." He shrugged.

That was the simple explanation, anyway. In school, it had seemed like it would be loads of fun, partnering with Ron and hunting down bad guys. But really it had turned out to be exhausting, tedious, and emotionally draining. A lot like hunting Horcruxes in seventh year, only for the rest of his life. The prospect had been quietly horrifying.

But he wasn't about to hash all that out on the street with Malfoy, of all people. At least, he didn't think he was. He was doing a rather lot of things he thought he'd never do just now.

Like chatting with Draco Malfoy.

Draco rocked on his heels, nodding. "Mmm. I can see how that might not appeal."

He was apparently the only one. Everyone else had been shocked. Even Hermione had asked, 'Are you _sure_ , Harry?' about a hundred times.

Harry's gaze bounced to Draco's face, took in the bemused curve of his pink lips, and danced away again. The wind seemed loud in his ears. Or maybe that was the rush of his blood. He hurried to fill the soft, warm silence.

"I've got a… I started a foundation. For orphans. Muggleborns and… well, anyone really. Kids who don't have a family to teach them about the Wizarding world, or whose families can't take care of them for some reason."

Both of Draco's thin brows rose at that. Harry could see the smooth skin of his forehead crease from the corner of his eye.

"Really? I've just been talking to Clawber in the DMLE about the need for Social Services for wizards here in the UK. You know the Ministry has no parallel?"

Harry blinked, mouth hanging open. His eyes slid to Draco's and caught in the glittering silver there.

"I… Yes, I did. When I came up with the idea for Marauder House, I went to the Ministry for help." He shrugged and ducked his head. "Well, I went to Hermione."

"Granger is by far the most sensible person there. Present company excluded, of course." Draco chuckled. Harry wasn't sure what to do with that velvet sound.

"S-she goes by Weasley these days, you know."

Draco lifted his hand, the left again, and twisted the diamond chip. "I know, but there are a dreadful lot of them already. She makes four in the Ministry alone. I assure you, Auror Weasley understands my need to differentiate."

"Ahh."

Auror Weasley. Ron. What did Draco know about how Ron felt? Surely his best mate would have mentioned chatting with their former nemesis. Though, perhaps not. Ron had been tip-toeing around him a bit since Marcel's tell-all.

Not that Ron cared a whit that Harry was gay. No, it was more that Harry had confided things to Marcel that he'd not shared with Ron, and Ron was hurt. Harry knew it, but had yet to figure out how to make it up to him. Even talking about Ron made his chest feel tight. Harry rubbed a hand against his sternum.

As the silence stretched between them, awkward and uncomfortable, Harry's shoulders drew up around his ears and his stomach twisted. He couldn't help but feel as if he was waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Draco to suddenly turn into the pompous, preening berk he remembered from those first years at school and throw the things Skeeter had said in Harry's face.

He stared at Draco and Draco stared back, the porcelain skin of his cheeks and forehead smooth and relaxed, a faint, inscrutable gleam in his grey eyes.

Perhaps the hints Harry had seen in sixth and seventh year of something more, the first flickers of a person who wasn't just a puppet to the ideals attached to his name, had flourished during his time in Australia. Maybe Draco would ignore the erumpent in the room and not seek to rub Harry's nose in the humiliating revelations and suppositions Skeeter had splashed all over the front page. Maybe they could even be friends.

The mere thought squeezed like Grawp's hand around his chest.

Draco scraped straight white teeth over his pink lower lip and tapped his toes on the pavement.

"Would you like to maybe get a pint? You could tell me about your foundation. I might be able to offer some insight, you know. The Australian Ministry has an extensive Social Services department, modeled after the Muggle government — only much improved."

Heat bloomed like dragon's breath in Harry's belly, spreading up through his chest to his neck and face. Did Draco mean…? Surely not. Obviously, he just meant a friendly drink; the grown-up version of the hand he'd extended on the train all those years ago. Perhaps he didn't even expect Harry to take him up on it.

And he shouldn't. He'd been planning to make himself dinner and then catch up on the latest reports from Luna about the first group of candidates for the House.

"Oh…" He lifted the bag of shopping suddenly, holding it between them like a shield. He couldn't remember the last time his heart had beat this fast. He thought he'd probably been calmer walking into the Forbidden Forest to face Voldemort. His stomach seemed to be curling in on itself. It was ridiculous, really.

He was Harry bloody Potter.

By the age of seventeen, he'd defeated one of the most powerful wizards of their age. Being outed and having some of his very private feelings and experiences spilled, by someone he'd thought was a friend, onto the front page of _The Daily Prophet,_ and then having those very personal things speculated about wildly by the likes of Rita Skeeter and the rest of wizarding Britain had not been ideal, but it was far from the end of the world.

It seemed, by some miracle, that the one other man whose name had also been bandied about in some very embarrassing ways within that article had decided not to mention it at all. Or, perhaps there _was_ some beneficent deity somewhere who had smiled on Harry just this once and sent Malfoy out of the country until just recently and he was the one person in all of wizarding Britain who hadn't read the damning piece of so-called journalism.

The tiniest seed of hope sent up a thin, delicate tendril within him and he was blurting out words without really considering them. He could almost hear Hermione's exasperated, 'Honestly, Harry' in his ear, but he barreled on anyway.

"I was going to cook. Would you, maybe, like to come to mine? I've got wine, or I could pop back to the grocery for some beer if you'd rather."

He was practically panting by the time he got all the words out. His eyeballs prickled with heat and he felt two spots high on his cheeks burning brightly. It took more courage than he would have thought to meet Draco's eyes and wait for his response.

This was the big test. If Draco had read the article and wanted to make a big deal out of it, Harry had just handed him a golden opportunity. Merlin's sake, he could run to the _Prophet_ right this second and sell this story to them, corroborating all their suspicions!

All the blood seemed to drain down to Harry's toes at the thought. The white noise in his head was as loud as the crowd at the Quidditch World Cup. It was so deafening it took him a minute to realize Draco was speaking.

"...would be brilliant, actually," Draco said. And he beamed so widely his cheeks creased. "I prefer it to beer."

Harry blinked. _Brilliant_ , Draco said.

Sure, he'd meant the wine, but that also meant he was agreeing to come back to Harry's flat. He was going to sit at the long, reclaimed acacia wood table that Harry had spent hours sanding, staining, and polishing until it felt like silk beneath his fingers and the grain glowed through in curving lines.

Draco Malfoy would stretch his long legs beneath Harry's kitchen table while they ate and talked and drank wine.

"Right," Harry croaked, trying to wrap his head around this bizarre turn of events.

Just half an hour ago he'd been standing in the aisle at Sainsbury's perusing the vegetables, and now he was about to escort his former enemy and current — something? — back to his. Crush, according to Marcel. Ex-boyfriend, according to Skeeter's speculation. Obsession, if you got Hermione on a bad day.

The truth was, Harry didn't know how he felt about the other man. He'd been desperately struggling with that very question for years, really. And now here they were…

"I'm just down there."

He gestured vaguely down Half Moon. Draco spun smartly on his heel to face the right direction, but waited to let Harry lead the way. He fell into step at his side, shortening his stride to match Harry's.

Harry was grateful he'd been nearly home, because he wasn't sure how long he could have stood the silence between them before he started babbling. It wasn't that the quiet was uncomfortable, per se. In fact, had it been anyone else walking at his side, elbows brushing, the faint scent of citrus and spice surrounding them in a warm cloud, and the sound of soft breaths in the gathering dark, he would have said it was perfectly pleasant.

It was simply the fact that it was Draco Malfoy and he didn't know how to bloody act if they weren't insulting or hexing each other.

"Why Mayfair?" Draco asked as Harry pressed his palm briefly against the bright blue door. He felt the wards shiver over his skin and dissolve. The lock clicked and the door swung inward on silent hinges.

Harry pushed it wider, fresh heat crawling up his throat. He shrugged. "Came into London with school once. Before Hogwarts, I mean. Saw all the posh houses, ladies in fancy dresses and blokes in suits, and I thought, 'That's where I want to live when I grow up.'"

Draco watched him, thick, surprisingly dark lashes framing his intense grey eyes. Harry glanced away as he flicked the switch for the sconces in the entrance. They flared to fill the narrow space with warm golden light.

George had rigged up the whole place to run on a combination of solar power and magic. His latest invention. Harry didn't understand the particulars, something about the energy of the sun resonating the same as magic, or some such. Whatever the reasons, it didn't react with magic the way regular electricity did. Harry's had been one of the first places in Britain to be hooked up with a Suncatcher Charm, but now more and more wizarding houses were converting.

Draco took in the fawn and gold filigree papered walls and the sandstone tile and smiled faintly. "And now, here you are."

"Here I am," Harry agreed, holding open the door for the other man to step inside. Draco paused, the polished toes of his shoes not yet over the threshold. Harry felt a knot tighten in his chest, wondering if this would be the moment Draco would come to his senses and leave. He didn't want that to happen.

He had no idea what the rest of the night would hold, but he had the sense that if Draco walked away now, this chance would never come again.

"And here you are."

Draco's lips curved softly as he lifted his foot to take the final step into the small entranceway. "Here I am."

The door swung shut behind him with a quiet thump, leaving the two men standing face-to-face with less than a foot of space between them. The last time they had been this close, Harry thought, was on a broom above the Room of Requirement with Fiendfyre licking at their heels.

He could feel the heat of it now, as if it still burned between them. Harry swayed a little, sweat prickled on his upper lip. He licked it away, tasting salt.

One pale, pointed brow lifted again, just as it had when Harry had first crashed into him.

"Alright there, Potter," Draco said again, though there was no question in his tone this time. No, this time it was definitely a statement. Of what though, Harry wasn't sure. Draco's voice was low, husky. It stroked down Harry's spine. He swallowed, his throat tight and his blood thick.

Harry couldn't think of what to say to that directly, so he tipped his head toward the stairs. "Shall we?"

Draco's smile spread, once again creasing his lean cheeks. His eyes gleamed like mercury.

"Oh, _let's_."

ooOoo

Harry had had nearly twenty years of odd dreams — both good and bad. He dreamt all sorts of things.

He'd once dreamt that his Aunt Petunia kept calling him 'Hawwykins' and trying to get him into a purple velvet suit so he could marry Professor McGonagall. Then there was the one where he was playing Seeker for the Chudley Canons at the World Cup, only he was naked and Ginny kept throwing cornichons at him. He even occasionally dreamed about being normal.

But he'd never, ever dreamt that Draco Malfoy would be wandering around his flat with a glass of merlot cradled in one long-fingered hand and such an intense look of curiosity on his face as he studied the framed photos Harry had scattered around on walls and tables.

There was a shot of Hermione and Ron at their wedding, both glowing with happiness, and Harry standing to the side looking awkward in a suit and tugging at a stubborn lock of his hair; one of Neville on one of his expeditions in South America, waving at the camera with dirt on his face and some new species of fantastical plantlife held aloft on his palm; Ginny standing on the pitch in her Magpies uniform; Molly and Arthur on the deck of a boat from when Ron had sent them on a cruise the year before; Hagrid and Charlie in Romania.

Harry had lots of photos of himself and his family of friends, and Draco seemed determined to examine them all.

Draco picked them up, watched the little figures smile or wave, and then set them down again somewhere else. He put Ron and Hermione's wedding photo up on the mantel instead of back on the short, low shelf where it had been since Hermione had placed it there when she'd given it to him.

The picture of Neville went back on the side table it came from, but with a quarter turn toward the couch instead of the window.

He even took the one of Ginny off the wall and swapped it with one of Harry giving Teddy his first ride on a broom that had been half-hidden behind the Flimsy Fly-eating Flower Nev had sent from Ecuador.

It wasn't just the pictures either. While making small talk about the goings-on at the Ministry, Draco strolled around the kitchen, opening cabinets and perusing their contents. He ran his hand along the marble countertops as he related a funny story about the first interdepartmental meeting he'd shared with the Aurors (and therefore Ron).

Draco opened drawers and stirred his fingers idly through the silverware, the clinking an almost musical accompaniment to his description of his life in Australia.

"You're not tan," Harry blurted in response. "I expected you to be tan."

Draco shook his head and chuckled. "I was. I tan quite well, surprisingly, for someone with such fair skin. But it faded depressingly quickly, alas." He sighed.

While Harry stirred the sauce he'd begun earlier, filling the flat with the scent of oregano, basil, and garlic, Draco traced the frame of an abstract painting Luna had found at a street fair. She said it was an excellent depiction of the wing markings of a Devonshire Butterskein, whatever that was. Harry just liked the bright colors.

Malfoy spent equal time contemplating the meticulously done line drawings of wizarding London locations that Harry had purchased from an artist in Diagon when he'd first moved into the flat and the crazy crayon and paint pictures Teddy and Rose had done for him.

Harry knew his flat was a bit cluttered. Not uncomfortably so, but there were bits and bobs here and there on tables and shelves. Things someone had given him, or just something he liked the look of. Some expensive, some not. It had nothing to do with price. He just had a tendency to collect things. Maybe it was because he hadn't had much of his own growing up, but now that he had his own space he enjoyed filling it with things he liked.

A little clock with intricate, spinning silver gears that he'd got in a shop in Paris when he was on holiday sat right next to a small cream and blush shell from the beach at Shell Cottage that Bill and Fleur's little Victoire had given him one day.

The charmed DA galleon rested, for some reason he couldn't remember, in the middle of a chess board he'd ordered special. All the figures were famous Muggles who had played witches or wizards in Muggle movies. He loved telling Ron about them during a game to make him laugh. He thought it evened the playing field.

Draco picked up the white queen, an androgynous woman in a dramatic, high-necked gown with sculpted cheekbones and pale, pale blonde hair. The figurine arched imperious brows at him. He snorted and set her back down.

As Harry rinsed the lettuce for the salad and told Draco about how he'd come up with the idea for Marauder House, he watched the other man surreptitiously out of the corner of his eye. Draco was never still; his movements were slow, languid, not nervous or fidgety like Harry's would have been. He perused, sipping his wine and asking seemingly idle questions that were actually quite clever.

"Have you and Granger discussed setting up a legal process to remove at risk minors from wizarding homes yet?"

They had, though they'd not made much headway. When he said as much, Draco nodded.

"It can be frustrating how long it takes to effect change. I think perhaps it's because of the war — so much changed for some of us in what was really so short an amount of time, didn't it? — that everything now seems to take forever. Or maybe that's just being an adult."

Even mentioning the war, Draco seemed casual, easy, elegant. Not unconcerned or aloof, but undisturbed. Relaxed. _Comfortable_.

It should have reassured Harry, but it didn't. In fact, watching Draco move about his flat and look at his stuff and talk as if that was something they did had him on edge in a strange way.

His earlier nervousness had faded, replaced with a tingling sort of awareness. A heavy, full, liquid sort of sensation. The feeling wasn't unpleasant, really, it was just… well, Harry couldn't quite put his finger on what it was.

Then Draco lifted a large paperweight — a rough chunk of obsidian that Harry had found in Sirius' bedroom in Grimmauld and had to have Bill check for curses because of the intricate carvings of arcane symbols — and rolled it in his palm, and Harry felt understanding pop like a shimmering bubble in his mind.

Draco wasn't just looking, he was _touching._ He was touching Harry's personal knickknacks and photos and furniture and _things_. He poked at them, caressed them, shifted them, turned them, picked them up and grasped them in those long, pale fingers with their perfectly clipped nails.

Not a single surface went untouched and it was all so terribly _intimate_. As if he was somehow marking territory or claiming the space for himself.

After tonight, Draco Malfoy's fingerprints would be all over Harry's flat. The mere thought made him shiver, chill-bumps chasing themselves across his skin.

While Harry chopped vegetables for the salad, Draco poked around his bookshelves, pulling a volume out and flipping through it, then putting it back and picking up another.

"Have you read all of these?"

He trailed the tips of his long fingers along a row of Muggle mystery books. Harry rinsed the carrots and tossed them onto the cutting board.

"Not all of them, no."

"And these?" He slipped one of the thin volumes from the shelf below the mysteries and slowly turned the brightly colored pages, amusement shining in his eyes. Harry chuckled as he took in the carefully arranged shelves of comics.

"Ron gave them to me for Christmas last year. That's the whole run."

Draco nudged aside a picture of Harry at the Burrow, his lap full of a squirming, giggling Teddy, Victoire and Rose, to make room for his wine glass, obscuring a small photo of Harry and Ginny on the back steps at Grimmauld.

"I haven't read The Adventures of Martin Miggs since I was six, I think. I'd forgotten how funny they were."

"Be even funnier now, I bet, Mr. Undersecretary of Muggle Affairs."

He turned toward Harry, those expressive brows bowing upward. Harry suddenly wondered if Draco's brows were as silky fine as his hair, or if they would feel course beneath his fingers. He flushed and turned back to slicing carrots, lest he cut himself in his inattention.

Draco wandered back toward the kitchen. "Now I feel bad for not knowing what you've been up to, Harry."

The use of his first name was deliberate, spoken with a low, inflected breath. Harry shifted his hips, heat prickling along his thighs at both the tone of Draco's voice and the implication of his words.

"Oh, well, you know. Hermione's mentioned you a few times. She's very impressed with the new legislation you've put before the Wizengamot with regard to the punishments for violation of the Statute of Secrecy."

"Ahh," Draco drawled, twirling the stem of his wineglass. "The Anti-Obliviation Bill. Unfortunately, it looks like it would require a mass Imperius to get that one passed." He pressed his lips into a line. "Getting them all to agree on anything, especially an adjustment to the Statute of Secrecy, is harder than bathing a full-blooded kneazle."

"Takes time to effect change, like you said." Harry slid the courgette from the grocery sack with a slight grin at Draco's twitching brows. "For the salad."

Draco bit his lip, a smile hovering around the corners of his mouth, his momentary aggravation over the stodginess of the Wizengamot evaporating.

Once the salad was complete, Harry tossed it in a light vinaigrette, making sure it coated every leaf, refusing to think about why he wanted this to be the very best salad he'd ever made. When he turned to place it on the kitchen table, he twitched with surprise and nearly dropped the entire bowl.

At some point during his exploring and rummaging, Draco had set the table. Pale stoneware plates Harry hadn't even remembered he owned were laid out beside gleaming silverware that sat on top of the dragon's blood red linen napkins that George (well, Angelina really) had given him as a housewarming gift. And… where had he gotten the candlesticks?

Harry vaguely remembered purchasing them on a trip to Barcelona with the notion of having them for romantic dinners, if he ever managed to get around to dating anyone seriously. Which hadn't happened, of course, so they'd gotten tucked away somewhere and he'd forgotten about them completely.

Now there they sat in the middle of his table, tall, slender tapers nestled within them. As Harry watched, Draco flicked his wand and muttered an absent Incendio and they flared alight. Like everything else Draco had done thus far, the movement was casually elegant.

He wondered idly if there was anything that could ruffle the cool blond, and the thought sparked crackling heat in his gut and an alarming tightness in his jeans. Harry set the bowl of salad down quickly and turned back for the bread.

"Thank you for setting the table."

"It's the least I could do, since you're cooking for me."

Harry hid his smile behind a sip of wine. He quite liked to cook, and did it often for his friends, but he didn't tell Draco that. His reasoning — that he wanted Draco to feel special — made him shift uncomfortably on his chair.

As he served them each a plate of spaghetti, he tried not to think too much about the fact that he was having a candlelit dinner with Draco Malfoy, but it was hard to ignore with the golden light casting shifting shadows on the other man's face where he sat diagonally opposite Harry.

He dropped his napkin into his lap, more worried about disguising tell-tale bulges than protecting his old jeans.

Soft music drifted from the other room, also Draco's doing, and Harry grinned as he recognized the opening chords of _Selling the Drama_. Maybe he shouldn't have been surprised that Draco had recognized the Muggle band whose t-shirt Harry wore, given his profession, but he was.

They ate in silence, Harry watching from under his lashes as Draco twisted pasta around his fork and lifted it to his lips. Even that was done with easy elegance, not a single dripping or slurped noodle.

Harry took small bites, conscious of the other man's eyes on him. Draco complimented him on the food, and Harry thanked him, but other than that and a few random comments about the food; 'I haven't had pasta this good since Tuscany', 'Molly grows the tomatoes in her garden' or 'I missed this while I was in Australia… couldn't find a good merlot to save my life', they were quiet.

Once the food was nearly gone, Draco refilled both their glasses, clinking his against Harry's in silent toast.

"Why are you here?" Harry could have stuffed the entire remaining loaf of bread in his mouth as Draco's hand paused mid-raise, wineglass hovering just before his lips.

He set down the glass with a soft sigh, his lashes sweeping down to shade his eyes. This close, Harry could see that they weren't actually as dark as he'd thought. In fact, they were as pale as the rest of his hair at the very tips, almost translucent. But they darkened toward the root. It was intriguing and made Harry wanted to run his fingertips along them.

When they lifted again, Draco's irises gleamed molten silver.

"I have a bit of a confession to make, Harry."

The pasta he'd eaten threatened to congeal in his gut at Draco's words. Harry gulped some wine to wash away the thickness in his throat.

"You read the article." The words tolled from his lips like funeral bells.

A faint line appeared between Draco's thin brows momentarily, then faded. He snorted.

"What? You mean that twaddle that Skeeter splashed all over the front page of the _Prophet_ on Sunday? I hardly lent it much credence."

Harry felt hot all over at the thought of Draco reading the things Marcel had divulged about him, but he was shocked by Draco's casual dismissal. The article had caused quite an uproar. The amount of mail he'd received since Sunday had been ridiculous. He could only be glad that Draco's return wasn't widely known outside of Ministry circles or the other man would probably have been inundated with Howlers.

He cleared his throat. "No?"

"I remember fourth year pretty well," Draco said, one corner of his mouth curling. "That woman didn't care a whit that I was a completely unreliable source. All that mattered to her was a sensational story. I assumed that was still the case."

"He… Marcel — I thought he was my friend." Harry's gaze skated from Draco's, fixing on the base of his wineglass as he turned it in a circle on the table. He hadn't really talked about this with anyone.

Hermione hadn't liked Marcel from the beginning, and though she was being completely supportive, he could see the strain of holding back the 'I told you so!' every time the subject came up. And Ron… Ron was still completely wrecked that Harry had felt there were things he couldn't tell his best mate.

Harry had plenty of well-meaning and thoughtful friends, but none with whom he wanted to discuss either his sexual proclivities, or his confusion over whether or not the fact that all the men he found attractive reminded him in one way or another of Draco sodding Malfoy meant anything.

Marcel had been a disinterested (or so he'd thought) party, a friend who hadn't been around during their school years, hadn't been through all the things they had. His family was from Quebec. They'd only moved to Britain after the war ended. And as a gay man who had come to terms with his sexuality before he'd even hit puberty, and thus had years more experience than Harry, Harry had viewed him as sort of a… mentor.

He should have listened to Hermione. She deserved that 'I told you so!'

"Friend or not — and I rather think not, given his actions — this Marcel doesn't seem to be all that well informed." Draco put his elbows on the table, laced his fingers together, and leaned forward, hair falling over his forehead again. Harry marveled at the sight of Draco Malfoy with his elbows on the table.

Draco's voice was low and teasing when he continued.

"After all, I would have recalled if you and I had been carrying on a torrid affair while at Hogwarts. Snogging passionately behind the suits of armor between duelling club and Quidditch and forbidden, feverish all-night shagfests in the empty Potions classroom with the Boy Who Lived aren't things I would forget, I assure you."

 _Snogging passionately_ …. Merlin! He couldn't even look at Malfoy's mouth at the moment without picturing it.

Harry's chuckle was weak. "Ridiculous, right? We hated each other back then."

"Well, I don't know about that." Draco leaned back, picking up his wine glass again and stretching his legs beneath the table. His ankle brushed the side of Harry's calf. Harry had to concentrate very hard to follow the other man's words and not think about the warmth of his leg so close. He was once again grateful for the napkin.

"No? You did a very good impression of someone who hated me."

Draco laughed. Loud. Head back, throat moving above the slightly open — and when had that happened? — collar of his shirt. Harry looked away and took another long sip of his wine. He was starting to feel a little fuzzy 'round the edges and a bit of the tension he'd been holding since he'd bumped into Malfoy's chest was finally melting from his muscles.

"I didn't hate you. I _wanted_ to hate you. Very much. But I didn't. Mostly, I envied you. And resented you quite a lot. I know you had Dark Lord related things going on that none of us were aware of, but you _did_ get away with behavior that would have gotten anyone else in trouble. Be honest, if McGonagall had caught _me_ on my broom that day in first year, I wouldn't have ended up the youngest Seeker in a century."

Harry was about to point out that Draco had been being an arse that day while Harry'd only been trying to do the right thing, but he had to admit that mostly he'd just wanted to prove something to Malfoy. And McGonagall hadn't asked what he was doing up on his broom at all anyway… and then he registered the first part of what Malfoy had said and felt his jaw loosen.

"You _wanted_ to hate me? What for?"

Draco swirled the wine in his glass, catching Harry's eyes over the rim. "It made it easier."

Hadn't he had a similar thought earlier? That being mad at Draco would make it easier not to feel the other decidedly not angry things he was feeling? Was Draco insinuating he'd had those kind of feelings? Surely not.

The words were embers on his tongue.

"Made what easier?"

Draco cocked his head, his lips quirking to one side.

"I believe I was giving my confession," he said, changing the subject.

Harry blew out a breath, wanting to push and yet terrified to as well. For most of the last three years, he'd been struggling to come to terms with how exactly he felt about the man sitting across from him. He'd only recently come close to figuring it out himself, and he wasn't yet sure he was ready to admit it to anyone else. Especially the man himself.

"Right. Right. Go ahead." He relaxed in his chair, hooking an arm over the back. Draco's gaze flickered down to his chest and then back up to his face.

"The truth is, it wasn't an accident, us bumping into each other earlier. I knew you lived round here. I was, in fact, coming from your door when we collided."

Harry frowned. "But… why? Are you mad about the article? Because you can't sue them. Skeeter or the _Prophet_. I've tried. Even though the things she said about… about _us_ aren't true, she didn't claim they were. She only speculated, which is apparently perfectly legal. She claims she's just 'following where the story takes her', based on the things Marcel told her. And he can't be sued either, because enough of what he told her was true that… and, well, the rest are just his _opinions_." Harry's nails bit into his palm as he clenched his hand into a fist.

Draco shook his head, but the press of his lips was contemplative.

"No," he said. "I wanted to talk to you, but not about the article. Honestly, I just assumed it was all lies from start to finish, given your history with her. And I'm not bothered by the speculation."

"You're not?"

The look of surprise on his face must have been comical because Draco laughed again. It was nothing like the snide snickering Harry remembered from school. He thought it was probably a very good thing he'd never heard Draco laugh like that back then or his school years would have been even more frantic and confusing.

Harry picked at the edge of the napkin in his lap, rearranging it to better cover his crotch.

"It's just — I've gotten quite a bit of mail. Some of it less than pleasant, and a good deal of that unpleasantness is directed at the idea of you and me…"

Together. Lovers. Harry didn't say it. He couldn't. He sipped more wine instead, the edges of his lips trembling.

Draco nodded. "I'm not easy to get hold of, but I've gotten a bit of it. A Howler here and there telling me what a degenerate I am or how I ought to be chucked in Azkaban for _defiling the Chosen One_."

The smile he flashed Harry on those last words ought to be classified Dark Magic by the Ministry, Harry thought. It was _that_ dangerous. He licked his lips.

"Sorry."

Draco waved his hand, dismissing the vitriol of total strangers as easily as a fly. The dragon's tail twitched at his wrist, drawing Harry's eye.

"Don't worry about it, Harry. It's not your fault anyway, and the people that matter to me know what's true and what isn't." His mouth twisted with humor. "Well, Pans remains unconvinced that I didn't cheat on her with you in sixth year, but even she said she'd forgive me."

"Parkinson? Damn. I didn't even think about… but then I'm sure your friends know you better than to take any of that seriously."

Draco lifted his nearly empty wine glass in a toast. The inner rims of his lips were stained red from the wine.

"They do. Blaise said, and I quote, 'You may have managed to keep quiet about the Vanishing Cabinet, but there's no conceivable way you wouldn't have bragged about sucking Potter's cock.'"

Harry choked on his wine, feeling alternately hot and cold, as if his blood couldn't decide which direction to rush in. Enough of it picked a destination for his shaft to thicken and press against the worn denim of his jeans again, however. He almost lifted the napkin to blot his lips, but thought better of it. He wiped his mouth on the back of his wrist instead, sucking air in and blinking the tears from his lashes.

When he regained his breath and lifted damp eyes to Draco, it was to find the other man smiling enigmatically.

"My apologies. Sometimes I forget that not everyone is accustomed to Blaise's casual vulgarity."

It wasn't that. Hell, Seamus' favorite words seemed to be 'cock' and 'cunt', given the frequency with which he used both. And Dean fancied himself a connoisseur of dirty jokes, the filthier the better. It wasn't the vulgarity itself that had surprised him, he was used to that.

But hearing the words 'suck' and 'cock' coming out of Draco's sinful looking mouth in such close proximity to his name. That was… Well.

Not to mention Zabini thinking that if he and Draco had been doing _that_ in school, Draco would have _bragged_ about it. Harry couldn't imagine the Malfoy he'd known admitting anything of the sort. Though, perhaps that had been Blaise's point? Maybe it was his way of taking the piss out of his friend, insinuating that he would have wanted to do those sorts of things with his enemy.

Luna had dated Theodore Nott for a few months and he and Millicent Bulstrode had suddenly become fixtures at pub nights, constantly insulting and making fun of each other. He'd thought they couldn't stand each other until Luna had explained that Theo considered Millie his very best friend, and that's just how they were.

Slytherin friendships were incomprehensible to Harry.

Harry shook his head. "No, it's fine. You just surprised me, is all."

Draco stared at him over the half burned candles, the flames dancing in his pupils. Harry felt as if someone had performed a powerful Vacuum Hex, sucking all the air out of his lungs. He really needed to get a grip. Draco had said he wanted to talk to him. Not about the article. He needed to stop projecting his own confusing desires onto the other man.

"You said you'd come to talk to me about something?"

Harry cast back, trying to recall something other than the way Draco's lower lip — a bit fuller than the upper, almost pouty when he pursed them — curved or the faint tracing of blue veins visible through the translucent skin of his wrist when he twirled the pasta on his fork. He tried to remember words instead of his realization that the color of the candle flame just where it edged from palest yellow to white was the same shade as Draco's hair.

No, he didn't think Draco had said what he wanted to talk about, but Harry might have been distracted by the press of Draco's knee against his, or the way the material of his shirt stretched tight across his shoulders when he shifted, or the bob of his Adam's apple as he swallowed his wine or any of the other three hundred and ninety-four things Draco had done that made his pulse thrum.

He'd spent most of the time since they'd sat down to dinner alternately trying not to stare at Draco like a drooling first year and worrying about hiding his embarrassingly persistent erection.

When Draco pushed his chair back from the table a bit, the scraping sound made Harry twitch.

He crossed his legs, just in case, thankful for the napkin in his lap, but Draco's eyes remained downcast as he picked at a bit of invisible lint on his fine black trousers.

"I did. I've been meaning to contact you since I got back, in fact."

He looked up suddenly, his silver grey irises shimmering as they caught the candlelight. Harry wasn't sure he breathed as Draco stretched his left arm out on the table, palm up, hand relaxed. The posture bared the exquisite tattoo of the dragon and turned his palm into a soft cup filled with thick golden candlelight.

As Draco's other hand rose, Harry again tried to glimpse the tattoo on his right forearm, but it was tilted away from him.

Draco stroked the detailed dragon that completely obscured whatever was left of the Dark Mark. It stretched and curled beneath his touch. He stared down at his arm, watching the slow movement of his own hand.

"I've spent a lot of the last five years attempting to make amends for the poor decisions of my childhood, Harry. Some of which has been easy." A brief twitch of his lips accompanied the words and he lifted his gaze to meet Harry's head on. "Most of it has not."

The solemn words sent a pang through Harry's heart.

"I think you've probably got a lot less to make up for than you think, Draco."

He shook his head. "I felt like I didn't have any choices at the time, but that wasn't exactly true. It was merely that all of the options were equally unpalatable to me. In most cases, I chose the easiest thing."

Draco's left hand clenched into a white-knuckled fist. He stared down at it for a moment, as if he wasn't in control of it. Then he drew a long, slow breath in through his nose and the fingers relaxed once again.

"People suffered because of it. Because of me."

Draco's teeth scraped over his lower lip, leaving it wet and red. He slid his gaze back up to Harry's, the silver irises almost gunmetal grey.

"You suffered because of me. Quite a lot, I think. I went out of my way to make your life miserable."

Harry shrugged, not liking the sorrow tightening the skin around Draco's lips. "We were kids. I seem to remember trying pretty hard to mess you up as well."

Unbidden, the stark memory of Draco lying in a puddle of blood and water filled Harry's mind's eye, turning his stomach.

"Nearly killed you once, and I never did say sorry. Which I am. That's just about the worst thing I've ever done, and it makes me sick to think that no one even yelled at me about it. It's no wonder you wanted to hate me back then."

Draco crossed his arms on the table. His shoulders shifted in an uneasy shrug.

"It was a duel. We were both trying to hurt each other. I was trying to… if you hadn't…"

"But I did and you didn't. If anyone has amends to make for that afternoon, it's me."

Harry watched as Draco rubbed his hands over his arms.

"If you had any amends to make, Harry, you made them in the Room of Hidden Things. Or when you defeated Voldemort, or testified at my mother's trial. Or mine." Draco shook his head then, as if to dislodge the memory, and forced his lips up into a sincere but threadbare smile. "Or when you made me dinner."

Harry rolled his eyes, grateful for the lightening of the mood. But he couldn't just ignore Draco's words.

"In that case, you made whatever amends you needed to make when you refused to identify me at the Manor, or when you tried to walk away in the Room of Requirement, or when you testified at all the Death Eater trials. You don't owe anyone anything anymore, especially me."

"Not even an apology?" Draco's brows nearly disappeared beneath his white-blond fringe.

Harry drained the last of his wine and set the glass aside. The smile tickling the corner of his lips surprised him. "Maybe an apology, then. If it'll make you feel better."

Draco reached out his left hand and touched the back of Harry's wrist, a fleeting brush, there and gone, and nodded.

"I'm sorry, Harry. For the way I treated you and the grief my words and actions caused you."

"I forgive you."

Draco tipped his head, eyes narrowing. "Just like that?"

"No, not 'just like that', prat. I forgave you a long time ago." He pushed to his feet, needing to move. He gathered up their empty plates and headed to the sink.

The first two years after the war had been _hard_ , full of funerals and mourning. Then coming to terms with loss, rebuilding, and moving on. Harry had had to figure out what a world without Voldemort meant for him.

It turned out it had meant dropping out of Auror training, realizing he was gay, and breaking up with Ginny. During the time when his life had been at its most chaotic, when he'd been panicking because he didn't have anything figured out, it had occurred to him how bloody fucking young they'd all been. Still were. He might not have agreed with the choices Draco made, but he was finally able to gain some perspective. He could imagine all too easily how it might have been for Draco, living in that house with Lucius for a father.

After that, it had been surprisingly easy to forgive him.

"Thank you."

The words were soft. Harry turned back, raising his eyebrows. Draco watched him, long legs crossed, fingers toying with his discarded napkin, grey eyes solemn. Harry leaned back against the sink.

"For forgiving you?"

"That… and for saving my life." He rubbed his arms again. "That's why I was coming to your flat. To say thank you. It's because of you that I even have the chance to make amends. If you hadn't come back for me, I wouldn't be where I am now."

Harry snorted. "All I did was not let you die. The rest is down to you."

"You did a lot more than that. I know you don't think so, but most people wouldn't have risked their lives to save their enemy."

Draco poured them both another half glass of wine, not looking at Harry, his two-tone lashes lying against his cheek. There was a faint crimson flush there, either from the alcohol or whatever strong feeling had gripped him.

The marble counter dug into the small of Harry's back, cool against his heated flesh. He pressed back against it, needing the feel of something solid bracing him during the shifting emotional sand of the conversation.

He was glad he had run into Draco, glad he was here, but he wished they could talk about something else. Harry wasn't the same person he'd been back then and he knew Draco wasn't either. And he really hated hearing Draco talk about him like he was some kind of… hero. He'd never been that person. He didn't want to be that person. Especially not to Draco.

"You weren't my enemy. And I'm not a _saviour_." He spat the last word from his tongue.

"Harry…"

With an agitated flick of his fingers, Harry summoned the rest of the dishes to the sink and muttered one of Molly's best cleaning spells so they would wash themselves. He shoved his other hand through his hair.

"Is this what we're going to do all night? Talk about the decisions we made back when we were scared children caught in the middle of a bloody war?"

Draco gave a sharp, deep chuckle. His eyes sparkled and that one brow drifted upward again, lifting Harry's heart rate with it.

"Merlin, I hope not. I can think of _so_ many other things I'd rather do."

Harry nearly choked again, without the excuse of his wine this time. Fire flickered in his gut and burned up his throat. Magic crackled in his fingertips. The bulbs in the wall sconces all flared too brightly and then gave out with a soft pop, leaving them in a dark kitchen bathed in candlelight.

Draco's gaze flicked from Harry's face to the burned out sconces and back. That look held Harry as motionless as a Petrificus Totalus while Draco pushed slowly to his feet. He picked up both wine glasses and carried them across the kitchen, not stopping his lazy stride until he was close enough for Harry to differentiate the fine line between his pupil and his darkening irises.

"You haven't finished your wine."

"No." Harry took the glass from him, their fingers brushing. He expected Draco's fingers to be cool still, though he didn't know why. But they were warm and smooth against his.

Once Harry had a grip on the stem of the glass, Draco lifted his own. This time, his toast wasn't silent.

"To… other things."

Staring into those fusible eyes, Harry tapped his glass against Draco's. "Other things."

They both drank a small sip. Harry wanted to ask what exactly Draco meant. He wanted to ask if Draco was gay, and how he had known if he was, and if he felt the thick pressure in the air whenever they were near each other. He wanted to ask if it had been like that in school and Harry had just missed it or ignored it or… He wanted to ask if Draco ever dreamed about that night when they'd ridden double on a broom and if it had ever not been a nightmare.

But he didn't ask any of those things. Instead, he held Draco's gaze and sipped his wine.

Harry wasn't sure how this had happened, if this was happening, but he felt like he'd been waiting for this night, this moment, for the last five years at least.

Draco finished his wine first and reached past Harry to set the empty glass in the sink. His hair slid against Harry's cheek like silk. Harry sucked in a breath scented with oranges and wine and Draco. His whole body twitched toward the other man but then Draco was stepping back again.

Not far, though. His left foot rested between Harry's feet.

One pale finger rose to lightly trace the picture on Harry's tee and he realized the album had restarted at some point while they ate. The lyrics to _I Alone_ drifted through the warm air between them.

Harry swallowed heavily and stared into molten silver eyes as Ed Kowalczyk sang ' _I alone tempt you…_ ' and thought, _yes_.

"Which parts are true, then?" Draco breathed the words, the tip of his tongue poking at the corner of his lips.

Harry tilted his chin, watching the other man's fingertip move over the thin fabric covering his chest. He didn't need Draco to clarify. He swallowed. Before he could formulate a coherent response, however, Draco continued.

"I told you I assumed it was all lies." His mouth curled as he focused on Harry's face. "But, clearly not. You said the cretin spoke _some_ truth. So, which parts are true?"

Harry forced the breath from his lungs as Draco's finger slid upward, brushing over the stiff nub of his nipple. His blood felt as if it were boiling just beneath his skin. The words were strangled by the time they escaped his lips.

"Most of it."

Both of Draco's brows rose. He flattened his hand against Harry's chest, fingers spread just over his heart. It attempted to leap into Draco's palm.

" _Really_." The way he said 'Really' was sinful, like a glutton who'd just been given the key to an endless buffet. Full of dark glee.

Harry nodded, mesmerized by the feel of Draco's fingertips petting his collarbone.

"Well, not the bits about us being…" He trailed off as Draco's blunt thumbnail scratched lightly along his shirt collar.

"Lovers."

Draco's hand stroked upward, following that curve of collarbone, until it rested on Harry's shoulder. The lightly calloused pad of his thumb rubbed Harry's pulse point. Harry's fingers clenched on the wine stem.

With that wicked, wide smile on his lips, Draco rescued the glass from Harry's grip. He reached across Harry in a brief press of chests, the pointed tip of his nose dragging briefly through the thick hair just above Harry's ear. Harry heard him inhale faintly, felt the slight shudder that rippled through the taller man's frame before he straightened and once again held his gaze.

"Right," Harry croaked, swaying closer to Draco, mesmerized by those silver eyes and unsure exactly what it was he was agreeing to. Draco slid his hand around the back of Harry's neck.

"But the rest?"

Harry tried to think through the haze of wine and arousal fogging his brain. He took a deep breath and could smell the warm scent of Draco's skin and soap. The other man's knee pressed warmly against Harry's inner thigh. Draco's fingers tightened on the back of Harry's neck. Harry wanted to reach up and touch the chest in front of him but his arms felt too heavy to lift.

"Yes," he said.

The truth was, everything Marcel had told Rita Skeeter had been true.

He'd told her Harry had begun questioning his sexuality at Hogwarts. Harry _had_ been at a party at the school not long after the end of the war, celebrating the completed refurbishment, when he ended up slightly tipsy and being kissed by a red-faced Justin Finch-Fletchley in the newly designated Slytherin common room.

Skeeter had described the event in her purposely hyperbolic and misleading manner as 'a fumbling kiss with a certain blond fellow alum that awoke The Boy Who Lived's dormant passions', and had commented on how 'fitting' it was that it took place in the 'House of Snakes' before reminding her readers that Harry was a Parselmouth and then making innuendos about his abilities with serpents.

Harry had pushed Justin away, startled and not entirely pleased with the other man, but also confusingly and undeniably aroused. That had been his first hint that he might be bent, though he hadn't accepted it as fact for several more years.

Marcel had said that Harry had gone to 'seedy' (Skeeter's word) Muggle clubs and experimented with strange men. He'd claimed that it was through hearing the stories of Harry's experimentation and many failed attempts at a relationship that it had become apparent that the Saviour of the Wizarding world was harboring a secret passion for his former enemy.

And during the time he'd been questioning, Harry _had_ relied on one of Hermione's tried and true philosophies: when in doubt, do research.

He had gone to Muggle clubs, which had seemed safer than risking being recognized in one of the few Wizarding establishments that catered to the LGBT crowd, and he'd learned some surprising things about himself.

For one thing, it turned out that he had a thing for blonds. Not that he'd never been attracted to a man with dark or red hair, but they were exceptions. More often than not, in a room full of fit blokes, Harry gravitated toward those fair of hair.

Blond, tall, lean but toned, with sharp features and sharper wit. Those were the ones that really drew him. Harry definitely had a type.

He'd honestly not realized it at first. It was only when one of his hookups, a fantastically sexy footballer called Harrison (who had, in fact, not been blond), had tried to drag him into an alley for a quick shag up against a wall that he'd begun to suspect the direction in which his true desires lay.

Harry had protested the public venue and Harrison had pinned him against the brick, eyes glittering a challenge, mouth twisted in a teasing smirk, and murmured, "What's the matter? Scared, Potter?"

Harry's nerves had disappeared in an instant, replaced by a white hot lust that had left them both panting, sticky, and satisfied.

It was the bloke after Harrison that had uncovered Harry's other… preferences. Ryan had enjoyed using a blindfold and restraints sometimes, but he'd especially got off on giving Harry commands. Harry had really liked him, so he'd gone along to be a good sport.

At first, anyway.

Honestly, Harry wasn't sure why Skeeter hadn't exploded with glee when she'd found Marcel. The Saviour of the Wizarding World not only gay, not only into kinky sex, but harboring a secret lust for his long-time rival and former Death Eater, that had essentially ruined every relationship he'd attempted to have? It must have seemed as if the Career Fairy were showering her with gifts. No wonder she'd splashed it all over the front page, as Draco had said.

It was the closest thing to honest journalism she'd probably ever done.

The only part that hadn't been true was where she'd decided to speculate about Harry and Draco and insinuate that the heated nature of their well-known past confrontations had been either pageantry to disguise an on-going affair or the bitterness of first love gone bad.

She had heavily favored the former theory, unsurprisingly. More drama.

Draco's fingers curling into the hair at the nape of his neck dragged him back to his candlelit kitchen. Draco tugged a little, tilting Harry's head back. Harry gasped. Draco's head bent, his lips brushing Harry's ear.

"Do you want to touch me, Harry?"

"Yes."

He practically sobbed the word, his need was so great. His hands squeezed into fists with the desire to touch. He felt Draco's lips curve and then his tongue — hot and slick — flickered into the shell of Harry's ear for a mere second before Draco caught the lobe between his teeth in a sharp nip.

Harry's whole body jerked like he'd been hit with a powerful Stinging Hex. Draco's breath was a velvet rasp against his neck. He dragged his mouth along the square edge of Harry's jaw. When the heated satin of his lips touched the corner of Harry's mouth, he finally spoke.

"Put your arms around me."

Harry obeyed immediately, his hands skimming Draco's lean hips and sliding over the soft fabric of his shirt to clutch at the strong muscles of his back. Draco brushed his nose along Harry's, his right hand flexing in Harry's hair. His left hand cupped Harry's jaw, one long thumb pressing into Harry's chin.

"Now kiss me."

Harry pushed immediately up toward the taller man, but he didn't have to go far. Draco met him halfway.

When Draco's mouth covered his, Harry's eyes drifted closed. Part of him felt as if he must be dreaming, that there was no way Draco Malfoy was actually there, in his kitchen, kissing him with such restrained heat. But the clink of the dishes washing themselves, the unforgiving marble counter digging into his back, the lingering scent of spaghetti sauce and candle wax in the air, those were all real. Which meant Draco, and the kiss, were too.

And all he could think was _**FINALLY**_.

He'd kissed or been kissed quite a few times in his life — some good, some bad, and some, he'd thought until that moment, rather spectacular — but nothing previous compared to the feel of Draco's slightly parted mouth pressing warm and damp against his. His lips were firm, smooth satin and Draco sucked at his mouth gently, withdrawing and returning to take more.

And then the tip of his tongue slipped out and teased at the seam of Harry's lips, demanding entrance. Harry opened willingly, eagerly meeting the slide of tongue with tongue, tasting wine and some nameless sweetness that his brain filed immediately away under the heading 'How Draco Tastes'.

Draco's hands tightened around Harry's head, pressing his jaw open wider, holding Harry still as he slipped his tongue into Harry's mouth again, curling and licking as if savoring the creamy center of his favorite confection.

Harry's arms tightened around Draco, pulling him closer, legs sliding together. And oh god and Merlin, he felt the achingly hard press of Draco's cock against his hip. He groaned into Draco's mouth, his hands stroking down Draco's back to his lean waist.

He expected, wanted, Draco to start rocking against him, but he didn't. His body was taut and still, all his concentration on where their mouths meshed. He kissed Harry as if he didn't need to do anything else ever again. He kissed Harry until they were both breathless, until Harry's lips felt swollen and tingling and his head was full of the taste and scent of Draco.

When Draco pulled his mouth away to nip at Harry's jaw, Harry groaned.

"Draco, please." He tried to shift closer, seeking that delicious friction. Draco's hands dropped to Harry's hips to hold him still. He scraped his teeth along the corded muscle of Harry's throat.

"I could turn you around and fuck you right here," Draco growled in Harry's ear, turning Harry's blood to fire.

"Yes!"

Draco chuckled. "I could, but I'm not going to." He sucked Harry's earlobe between his teeth and flicked it with the tip of his tongue.

"No?" It was almost embarrassing, the whimper in his voice, but Harry was too turned on to care. Draco's tongue traced a hot line up his throat.

"No."

He slid fingers underneath the edge of Harry's t-shirt, teasing the skin just above the waistband of his jeans with feathering strokes. Harry shuddered, clutching at Draco's shirt, again trying to arch against him.

Draco pulled back, fingers hooked on Harry's waistband. Without another word, he drew Harry across the kitchen, calling the candlesticks to trail after them with a flick of his wand. Harry followed, gaze locked on Draco's as he climbed the stairs, wondering how Draco seemed to know where to go.

Though, he supposed it wasn't difficult to deduce. Draco had, after all, explored the flat's entire second floor while Harry was cooking.

Draco paused on the landing, casting a quick glance at the five closed doors that lined the hall — three on the left, two on the right — and then tilting his head at Harry in question.

"Second door on the right."

Draco's smile was wide and wicked. He caught Harry's lips in another quick, hot kiss but drew away when Harry leaned into him. The candlelight flickered on the walls, illuminating more framed photos. Draco didn't pause to examine these as he had the ones below. Harry was glad.

As Draco pulled him toward the second door, however, the two photos beside it, in between Harry's bedroom and his home office, caught Harry's eye. They were two of his favorites, secretly.

The lower one was an old, sepia toned photo of a young Albus Dumbledore looking lean and surprisingly fit in a studious way, perched on a window seat, reading a thick tome with a small smile. The sky outside the window behind him was hazy with sunset. He didn't know how Hermione had gotten her hands on the photo, all she would tell him was that she now owed someone on Level Nine a very big favor, but he didn't care. He loved it.

The top photo was one someone, Neville he thought, had taken during their Hogwarts years. Ron stood in the center in his Weasley sweater, arms draped around Harry and Hermione's shoulders, grin wide and goofy. Hermione had an arm around Ron's waist and glanced up at him, affection and exasperation warring on her face. Ron watched her out of the corner of his eye.

Harry, on the other hand, was looking at neither of them. He was staring out of frame, his thick brows drawn down over his nose, scrawny shoulders hunched, hands buried in his pockets. It was clear from the direction of his eyes he was watching someone walk by and the flash of white-blond hair against black robes at the edge of the frame left little guess as to whom. Photo Harry stared intently for a moment and then his head jerked around and he smiled at the camera somewhat sheepishly.

That wasn't what made this one his favorite, though. It was no surprise to him or anyone that he'd watched Draco. No, his favorite part was at the very end, before the image began to loop again.

Harry grinned and nudged Ron, goofing with his best mate. And at the very edge of the frame, a blond head turned in his direction.

Photo Draco's expression wasn't visible, only the very edge of his profile, but it didn't matter. It didn't even matter that you had to look really closely to even notice Draco's presence in the picture.

No, what mattered to Harry, what had always given him a little secret thrill, was that _Draco had looked back_.

Of course, the feeling he got looking at that photo was nothing compared to the erotic tangle of heat and incredulity twisting in his gut as Draco held his gaze and slowly turned the knob to the bedroom door. It swung open with a welcoming creak of hinges. The candles swooped eagerly forward and began lighting their brethren until the room glowed with thick golden light.

Draco's heated gaze raked the large room, taking in the almond cream walls, dark slate carpet, and pale wood furniture. His mouth quirked at the pile of muddy Quidditch gear in one corner and the nightstand littered with magazines. Harry was thankful that the rest of the room was clean, however, and the dark green silk bedspread was smoothed neatly over fresh, high-count cotton sheets.

He went willingly when Draco pulled him in for another long, heated kiss that was all curling tongue and sucking lips. He shuddered with desire when Draco maneuvered him over to the side of the bed and pushed him gently down.

Long, strong fingers curled around the hem of Harry's t-shirt and lifted.

"Off." The word was a harsh grunt from Draco's kiss-pink lips.

Harry kept his gaze on Draco's face as he reached over his shoulder to tug the worn cotton tee over his head. The fabric obscured the other man from his sight for just a moment and knocked his glasses askew. He straightened them with his shoulder and tossed the shirt away, enjoying the look Draco swept across his chest.

Draco placed both hands on Harry's shoulders, fingers cool against his superheated skin. Harry's mouth rounded soundlessly as both hands stroked downward, through the smattering of dark, curling hair. They paused, fingers shifting to trace the circles around the tightly peaked, tan nipples.

Harry jerked, spine curling, fingers tensing in the bedspread as Draco scraped a thumbnail across one sensitive nub.

"Draco!"

Draco smiled, butterfly caresses trailing down over Harry's abdomen. He barely brushed his fingertips over the swollen flesh trapped by Harry's jeans, eyes flaring with molten heat as Harry bucked up into the touch.

He slid those strong hands back up, stepping closer to run them down Harry's back. Harry wound his arms around Draco's waist, enjoying the exploring, massaging touches. Leaning slowly forward, eyes on Draco's face, he pressed his lips to the soft fabric that covered Draco's cock.

Draco groaned, body curving over Harry's. His hands gripped the back of Harry's head, fingers curling through the wild thickness of his black hair, pressing him closer.

Harry mouthed the rigid length, breathing heavily, sucking. He couldn't taste Draco's skin, only clean cotton, but he loved seeing the red spread up Draco's throat to stain his cheeks. His fine blond hair hung over his forehead and his eyes gleamed.

He'd just traced his tongue over the trapped head when Draco's fingers tugged at his hair, pulling Harry's head back.

"You've put on a bit of muscle since the last time I saw you without a shirt."

Draco's posh voice had a jagged edge that stroked over Harry's skin. He chewed his lower lip, wanting to return to what he'd been doing, but Draco held him firm.

"I quit the Aurors, but kept up with the training schedule so I wouldn't get lazy." Then he shook his head. "Wait, when did you see me without a shirt?"

"Quidditch showers." Draco's grin was wide, showing off those heart-stopping creases.

Harry blinked, lust mushrooming in his chest and gut as the words conjured images of Draco soapy and wet — all that creamy, silken skin bare and slick, head tipped back, water dripping down his long, pale throat.

It was a memory, not a fantasy, one he hadn't even been aware he had. Fifth or sixth year, maybe? It all blurred together a bit now. He'd spent so much time watching Malfoy, he had a million snippets stored away in his head. He couldn't specifically remember why he'd been spying on Draco in the showers but the memory was there. Apparently, his wasn't the only one.

He swallowed. "You watched me? Back then?"

Maybe there was more truth to Rita's innuendos and insinuations than he'd known. Perhaps the fighting really had been disguising something else. Not consciously. Harry could still remember the stinging, burning anger and frustration he'd felt toward Draco. But there was no denying that, at some point, that had… not dissipated, but shifted.

He still felt just as strongly, only hatred had become passion. And, after tonight, perhaps more. He tucked that thought away for further consideration some time when he wasn't gagging for Draco's cock.

"You watched me too, Harry. Don't pretend you didn't."

Harry shook his head, enjoying the slight twinge of pain as Draco kept hold of his hair. His voice was a croak when he forced it from his throat.

"Not like that."

That single brow lifted again. "Are you sure?"

He wasn't anymore. Perhaps this had always been there, thwarted by their contentious meeting, fueling their animosity.

Unable to think of a response, Harry merely stared. Draco smiled. Without releasing his grip on Harry's hair, his other hand rose to stroke Harry's face. The touch was light, a single finger teasingly tracing Harry's lips.

"Take off my shirt."

Harry licked his lips, tongue catching the pad of Draco's pointer finger. Draco shivered, pressing the digit between Harry's teeth. Harry nipped at the salty, slightly calloused flesh and lifted his hands to obey.

Draco pulled his finger free, trailing it down Harry's throat to paint Harry's nipple with wetness.

Harry's hands trembled, fumbling to tug the smooth fabric of Draco's shirt free of his slacks. He had to concentrate to undo the tiny jet buttons, teeth digging into his lower lip. He struggled to ignore the rough sound of Draco's breathing, the talented fingers toying with his nipples, stroking his throat, and combing through his hair.

He worked from the bottom up and each frustratingly slippery button he conquered allowed him to draw the shirt open, baring the jut of Draco's hip bones and the taut plane of his muscled belly. A faint, thin trail of silky hair began at the shallow dip of his navel and then disappeared under the waistband of his slacks.

It was darker than the hair on his head, the dark honeyish blond Harry had only seen at the roots of Draco's lashes.

Harry spread the shirt wide and bent to nuzzle against that fine line of hair. The velvet sound of Draco's moan caressed Harry's aching cock like a hand. He huffed an uneven breath against Draco's skin, pressing his mouth harder, pulling skin between his teeth to suck at it.

"Huh-Harry!" The startled exclamation and accompanying buck of Draco's hips made Harry smile against his flesh.

He gripped Draco's hips tightly, meeting the other man's eyes as he dragged his tongue up the groove that disappeared into Draco's slacks. Some deep recess of his lust-drenched mind provided the name of that particular delicious crease — the iliac furrow. Hermione would be so proud.

Thoughts of his friend got pushed hastily aside as he finished undoing the last button and shoved Draco's shirt completely open.

Shimmering grey fabric framed smooth skin that gleamed like a pearl. His chest was smooth, his rosy nipples small and hard.

Harry glimpsed the thin lines, white on white, that were all that remained of the curse he'd flung at Draco all those years ago. They criss-crossed the sculpted expanse, the longest trailing off just above Draco's belly button.

With his eyes on Draco's, he ran his fingertips gently over every single scar, trying to convey with his touch how much he regretted their violent past. Draco stared down at him, dilated pupils surrounded by the thinnest circle of silver, panting. Harry pressed a soft kiss to the trailing end of the longest scar.

Draco pulled him to his feet, mouth locking on Harry's with fierce need. The kiss knocked Harry's glasses sideways. Harry yanked them off and tossed them aside, Draco's face going soft and blurry 'round the edges.

The rest of their clothes disappeared so quickly Harry would have thought Draco banished them, except he had a distinct memory of kicking off his jeans while Draco slid down his pants, strong hands gripping Harry's arse.

He only had a brief glimpse of Draco's cock — long and perfect, curving upward toward his flat belly, the tapered head flushed a deep rose and glistening with pre-cum — before he was once again shoved back onto the bed. He didn't protest however, because Draco climbed on top of him a moment later.

Draco's mouth was on his, biting at his lips. The slippery glide of Draco's cock against his sent starbursts of pleasure exploding along his spine. He arched, gripping Draco's hips to urge him into a pressing, rocking rhythm.

They writhed together on the soft bed, filling the quiet room with the sound of their ragged gasps. A twist of Draco's hips made Harry shudder. His prick throbbed against his belly, leaking sticky fluid. Watching Harry's flushed face, Draco repeated the tantalizing movement, grinding deliciously down onto him.

"Christ, Malfoy!" His fingers dug into the smooth, flexing muscle of Draco's arse.

Draco chuckled against Harry's neck. "Like that, do you, Potter?"

That tone, the sharp, biting tone, licked at him like fire, setting him alight. He bent his knees, pulling Draco further into the vee of his legs. It was Draco's turn to gasp. Harry caught his earlobe in his teeth and sucked, lapping at the delicate shell of Draco's ear.

"Fuck, yes. Do it again."

Draco's shoulders shook with silent laughter. "I should have known you'd be greedy."

Harry used one hand to slap playfully at Draco's arse, making the other man gasp.

"As if you're not."

"Too bloody right I am," he growled in response. He kissed Harry again, and then they were lost in a haze of groaning, slippery, pressing pleasure.

Harry clutched at Draco, fingers squeezing hard enough to bruise his pale flesh. Draco didn't seem to mind. He bucked and twisted, hands buried in Harry's hair. He used the wild mass to turn Harry's head when he wanted to take a break from owning Harry's mouth to bite and nip and suck at Harry's throat and chest.

They would both be marked when they were done.

A shaft of pure white fire blazed up Harry's spine at the thought. His heart thundered and his pulse pounded. He felt his balls tighten and knew his orgasm was close, the desire burning and swelling within him too much.

Draco ground their cocks together, skin sliding against slippery skin.

The hair on Draco's legs was soft as down against the coarser curls on Harry's thighs and calves. Draco was all satiny and smooth, even the pale curls at the base of his perfect cock were gold silk. Harry felt rough and harsh against him, but the contrast only seemed to fan the flames of his arousal.

His muscles tensed, his throat arched. Sensing he was close, Draco increased the pace of his wicked thrusting, shuttling his slippery shaft along Harry's over and over.

"Come for me, Potter. Let me feel you spurt all over my cock."

Draco Malfoy talking dirty to him and grinding against his naked, throbbing cock was just too much. Harry came in a rush, skin tightening all over. He heard himself calling out Draco's name, felt the warm splatter of his come wetting his belly and chest, smearing against them both as Draco continued rocking and gliding against him.

A second later, Draco buried his face in Harry's throat. His teeth caught muscle and bit, hard enough to make Harry twist with another spasm of pleasure as Draco groaned his release into Harry's skin. Harry could feel the throb of the other man's cock against his still sensitive shaft, the heated splash of his seed painting them both.

Harry stroked his hands up Draco's shuddering back, rubbing along either side of the groove of his spine.

They lay panting in each other's arms for several long, breathless moments. Harry could feel the galloping rhythm of Draco's heart pounding into his chest, echoing the fierce rhythm of his own.

"Sixth year definitely would have been much more pleasant if we'd been doing that back then."

Draco's muffled words made Harry snort with laughter. He felt the other man's lips curl upward against his throat. The faint, lingering sting of Draco's bite buzzed along his nerves. When Draco brushed his mouth over it in a gentle kiss, Harry shivered.

He trailed languid fingers across Draco's shoulders.

"Do you…" He bit his lip, unsure if he should ask. Draco continued peppering those gentle, open-mouthed kisses on Harry's neck and shoulders, sucking at the sheen of salt on his skin.

"What?"

Harry sighed, staring up at the exposed beams of his bedroom ceiling.

"Do you think things might have been different? If I hadn't turned down your offer of friendship that day on the train? Might we have ended up here sooner?" He ran his fingers through Draco's damp corn silk hair, pushing it back from his broad forehead.

Draco rubbed his lips against Harry's jaw before rolling suddenly off of him. He propped himself up on his side, head in his palm, and studied Harry with heavy-lidded eyes.

His other hand rested gently on Harry's chest, toying idly with the hair curling between his nipples.

"No," he replied, after a long moment. He lifted his chin a bit, holding Harry's gaze. His fingers traced downward, trailing through the cooling puddle of their mingled fluids just above Harry's navel. He rubbed the slick mixture into Harry's skin.

"Let's be honest, Harry. Even if you hadn't snubbed me then, things were already off to a bad start. What then? Go back to Malkin's? It hardly would have gone any different, me being how I was back then and you being who you were."

He curled gentle fingers around Harry's limp cock, squeezing softly. The touch wasn't sexual. It was almost comforting.

"Perhaps, if I hadn't been raised in my father's house, and you hadn't lost your parents, we might have been friends. But even then, maybe not. Maybe if Voldemort had never been born…" He shrugged, brushing tender knuckles against Harry's balls. "Go back far enough, change enough things, and we might have been friends earlier. But then would we really be us anymore, without those things?"

Harry reached over to tuck the fine, loose hair back behind Draco's ear. Even those were slightly pointed, he noticed suddenly, rubbing his finger over the peaked top. Harry grinned.

"That's entirely too deep for me to contemplate when you've just made me come my brains out."

Draco slapped Harry's inner thigh and rolled his eyes. "You asked. Prat."

Rolling quickly to his feet, Draco snatched his wand from the dresser, where it had ended up when they'd been frantically undressing. Harry leaned up on his elbows with a frown as Draco cast a quick cleaning spell on them both.

The tingling feeling washed over his skin, tickling and making him shiver. Draco's flesh, too, rippled under the sensation, but he shrugged it off and stepped into his pants.

Harry had barely noticed them when he'd peeled them from Draco's lean thighs earlier. Now that his mind wasn't so clouded by lust, he took note of the navy blue, raw silk shorts as Draco dragged them up and tucked his still impressive cock away.

They looked phenomenal on Draco, but he couldn't say he was all that pleased seeing the other man covering up.

Some of his earlier nerves returned. He pushed to a sitting position and pulled the comforter over his lap, feeling exposed and unsure again.

Was Draco done with him, then? He felt cold, his chest squeezed tight. Maybe this had just been meaningless to Draco. Some game. His face burned. His throat felt thick, but he managed to push out the words.

"Are you leaving?"

Draco lifted both brows and made a point of running his hand down his still bare chest until it rested just above the bulge of his cock. That and a commanding, "Stay here," were the only reply he received.

Harry shifted restlessly while he listened to the faint slap of Draco's bare feet on the stairs. His gaze drifted around the room, taking in the scattered clothing. The inside-out legs of his jeans and Draco's stylish slacks were twined around each other. Draco's shirt was draped off the chair beside the armoire, one sleeve trailing onto the floor. Draco's polished shoes and socks were tumbled up with his scuffed trainers. Draco would probably cringe at that, but it made Harry smile.

There was a tiny bubble of something caught under his ribs at the sight.

He fished his glasses off the floor, unsurprised to find one of the arms broken at the hinge. He leaned back against the headboard, murmured a soft Oculus Reparo, and seated them back on his nose just as Draco padded back into the room, a new bottle of wine in one hand and glasses in the other.

"You didn't really think I was leaving already, did you?" He climbed onto the bed beside Harry, handing him the glasses and popping the cork.

Harry shrugged, evading Draco's eyes as he held the glasses steady for Draco to pour them some wine.

Draco set the bottle aside, took his glass, and met Harry's gaze with gleaming eyes.

"Rest assured, Potter… I'm far from done with you."

ooOoo

Despite his provocative words, Draco merely settled against Harry's side, shoulders brushing, and sipped his wine. Harry brought his own glass to his lips, enjoying the rich, peppery flavor as it slid down his throat.

He still couldn't quite believe this entire night was real. For so long he'd been conflicted in his thoughts about Draco, and yet despite a bit of awkwardness, things between them felt… easy. It wasn't a word he'd ever before associated with the blond reclining beside him.

As he drank his wine, Harry studied Draco from the corner of his eye. The shifting shadows cast by the numerous candles threw the angles of his face into high relief, the curve of his brow, high cheekbones, the jut of his chin, the blade-like nose. For a moment, he looked carved out of marble, the mellow gleam of light on his alabaster skin turning him into a sculptor's masterpiece.

Then he turned his head and became so much more, the life glinting in his grey eyes and infusing the curl of his mouth, animating what would have been art with something divine. Even the messy fall of hair over his eyes made him look vital in a way that gripped Harry's guts.

"Tell me about Australia," he blurted, panic at the strength of his emotion scrabbling in his chest.

He kept his eyes locked on Draco's, though they wanted to wander over those broad shoulders, lean chest, and long legs. He wanted to study him closer, the flat of his shoulder blades, the silken tufts of hair beneath his arms, the ridges of his belly, the twisting tattoos on his forearms, the elegant arch of his feet.

Instead, he watched the play of candlelight and emotion on Draco's face. Sorrow, exasperation, elation. Too many other things to catch. He swirled his wine in the glass.

"Father wanted to stay here after the war was over, you know."

Harry stiffened in surprise. Though he'd testified at Draco and Narcissa's trials, he hadn't been able to bring himself to speak up for Lucius as well.

Not that it had mattered. Lucius had managed to secure himself a deal with the Wizengamot anyway, promising his testimony against the remaining Death Eaters in exchange for his own freedom. Harry knew Kingsley had opposed the idea, but then Draco had come forward to promise his testimony as well. The rest of the Wizengamot had overruled Shacklebolt.

He couldn't deny that the information and testimony the two men had given had allowed Robards and the rest of the Auror squad to round up the last of Voldemort's cronies. Everyone who had even the remotest involvement in his schemes had been put before the Wizengamot and, thanks in large part to Lucius Malfoy, ended up on probation or in Azkaban.

But between his testimony and the fact that he'd managed to avoid imprisonment himself, the head of the Malfoy family had become even more unpopular than he had been prior. Harry couldn't imagine why he would have wanted to stick around.

Correctly interpreting Harry's shock, Draco gave him a sideways smirk.

"He really believed he could turn it all around. Who knows, maybe he could have done. But Mother absolutely refused. She…" He downed a slug of wine, a faint coral flush staining his cheeks. "I think she was worried about what it would do to me, being here."

Narcissa has always struck Harry as an intelligent woman, and hearing Draco's words only confirmed that. In the first year or so after the war, things had still been very raw. There had been so many funerals, so much rebuilding to do.

Animosities had flared often in the midst of such grief and upheaval. He couldn't imagine it would have been pleasant for Draco, had he been present during that time. Harry had still been in Auror training then, he'd heard the horror stories about things that happened to anyone even suspected of having been sympathetic to Voldemort. People had been spat on and had things thrown at them, even been beaten in the streets. Shops had been vandalised, houses burned.

Now that some of the visible scars had faded and everyone had gotten a bit of distance from the worst of their grief, things like that rarely happened anymore. Draco had chosen a good time to come back.

"Why Australia?"

One pale shoulder lifted in a shrug. "Mother has some very distant Black relatives near Sydney. There's quite a large Wizarding population down there, you know. Aussies are remarkably laid back about anything odd, so the atmosphere is very different to here. The Australian Ministry works very closely with the Muggle government down there, so the two societies are almost seamless."

"Is that how you ended up working in Muggle Affairs?"

Harry was intrigued, because he couldn't imagine the Draco he remembered from school ever purposefully taking a job that required him to interact with Muggles all the time.

This Draco, sitting next to him in nothing but blue silk pants and drinking red wine, the Draco who had recognized the Muggle band on Harry's shirt and knew their music well enough to put an album on, was a different Draco entirely.

And yet, he was still the same. The fundamental core of him seemed unchanged.

Harry could see it in the imperious arch of brow Draco shot at him, the pursed lips. Draco may have shed his old prejudices, his petty childishness, and some of his snobbery… but he was still _Draco_.

"Very astute, Potter."

Once, the sharp way Draco said his last name had boiled his blood. It still did, but now in an entirely different way.

Harry shifted, pulling the covers further over his lap to hide the effect it had on him. Given the tiny curl of one corner of Draco's mouth, he likely suspected, but he continued sipping his wine and carried on answering Harry's question.

"That was Mother too. She didn't waste a minute once we got to Sydney, setting up house and hosting some of her legendary soirees. The war had touched them some there, but our name wasn't reviled like it was here. It was only a matter of weeks before she had friends at the Ministry, and then she secured me a position… a low one, as a clerk, to start. She said it would be good experience for me, no matter where I ended up."

His smile grew wider as he spoke of Narcissa. "I think she knew even then I'd come back here one day. To… England."

Draco's eyes flicked from the rich red of his wine up to Harry's face and back down. Harry stretched his legs.

"Always knew your mum was a clever one. But… why Muggle Affairs, specifically?"

"At first, I was just trying to make amends, but I find I quite like it now. Father was furious, of course." Draco snorted, shifting his legs until they pressed against Harry's, the warmth of him perfect as it seeped into Harry's skin.

"He would have preferred I work toward something more… influential. Under-secretary to the Minister, most likely. But I'd gotten over wanting to be just like him by that point. I wanted to do something different."

"Can't get much more 'different' for Draco Malfoy than Muggle Affairs."

Draco's eyes blazed into Harry's, his grin devastating.

"Exactly."

Harry took another sip of the wine, rolling it on his tongue, savoring the flavor. Draco watched him, gaze intent. The heated look sent fresh tendrils of desire twisting down Harry's torso, tightening his muscles and sending blood rushing to his groin.

"How'd you end up back here, then?"

His heart picked up beating as he stared into Draco's eyes and saw the answering heat there. Draco drained his wine glass and set it aside without looking away.

"Later. That story involves your friend Granger and I'd rather not think about her while I've got you naked in bed."

Harry grimaced at the mention of Hermione, some of the desire bubbling beneath his skin abating. However, it came roaring back a moment later when Draco's cool fingers wrapped around his where they rested on the stem of the wineglass. He leaned suddenly into Harry's side, breath warm and spiced against Harry's cheek.

"Finished with your wine?"

Harry nodded, relinquishing the glass despite the inch of wine still in it, staring into the dark pools edged in brightest silver that were locked on his face.

There was a clink of glass and then Draco's hands were back, cupping Harry's face and pulling him in for another kiss.

Harry kept expecting the devastating effect of Draco's kisses to wear off, for the glide of satin lips and hot velvet tongue to not hit him like a shot of expensive firewhiskey exploding in his gut and fogging his head with molten lust. But every single time Draco's mouth touched his, it made his heart beat faster than a hummingbird's wings and the fire of need under his skin burn magnesium bright.

It only took a few minutes of those deep, wet, hot kisses, a few minutes of those gliding, dancing thrusts of Draco's tongue against Harry's, before Harry was hard and aching again, tenting the bedspread with his obvious arousal.

He wasn't the only one affected, Harry saw. Draco's erection stretched the dark blue silk taut, a tiny spot of moisture near the head turning the thin fabric almost black. Draco's upper chest, throat, and cheeks were stained a crimson, like a delicate glaze on fine bone china.

Harry stroked his hand across Draco's skin, tweaking one stiff nipple between his fingers, heady with the knowledge that he was the one doing this to Draco. He was turning the elegant, sure Draco into a man who sucked greedily at Harry's tongue and arched into the palm Harry pressed to his silk-clad cock.

Draco's fingers tugged at the blanket tucked around Harry's waist, but Harry shook his head, pulling away from the passionate mesh of mouths.

The other man tipped his head slightly in question, lips brushing Harry's chin, his ear.

"What is it, Potter? What do you want?" The faint, soft edge of smug amusement in Draco's sultry tone lanced through Harry, a hot knife of lust, making him gasp. His eyes rounded, mouth hanging open.

Draco knew what Harry wanted, the pleased curl of his lips said so clearly, but he wanted to hear Harry ask. He wanted to _make_ Harry ask.

Harry's hand shook slightly as he squeezed the rigid length under his palm, massaging up and down, rotating the base of his hand over the weeping head as he stared into Draco's flushed and smirking face. Harry licked his lips. Draco's blazing eyes followed the small movement.

"Please…"

Harry pushed his fingers under the waistband of Draco's pants, curled them around the hot, hard shaft and drew it free. He pumped his hand, eyes flickering between the bone-melting sight of his thick, blunt-tipped, calloused fingers wrapped around the pale perfection of Draco's cock and the almost equally compelling sight of the pleasure twisting Draco's handsome face.

His skin looked so rough and dark compared to Draco's, the curling dark hair at his wrist so much more wiry than the small patch of curls above Draco's cock. The skin of Draco's balls was taut and pink. Such contrast between the two of them.

"Please what, Potter?" Draco shifted, lifting his hips to push his prick through the tight circle of Harry's fist.

Harry dragged his gaze back to Draco's face, enjoying the sight of the kiss swollen lower lip caught between even white teeth.

He scooted down on the bed, maintaining the eye contact and his grip on Draco's cock through sheer determination. When he finally hovered over Draco's slightly spread legs, he licked his lips again.

"Let me —" His desire was so thick the words caught in his throat. He had to clear it before he could continue. "Let me suck you, first. I… I want to."

Draco lifted a hand to Harry's head, sliding it through Harry's hair, tugging gently. Harry leaned into the sensation, feeling it all the way down his spine to the tips of his toes.

"You want to suck my cock, Potter?"

Hearing the words drip from Draco's sculpted lips like filthy diamonds, Harry shuddered. He nodded, inhaling slowly to steady his thundering heart. It was a mistake. It brought the warm, spicy musk of Draco's skin flooding into his nose. It buzzed in his head like a very good wine.

"Yes," he groaned. "Gods, yes, I want to suck you, Draco."

Draco smiled, that broad, beaming, cheek-creasing smile that sucked all the air from Harry's chest and stole all the light from the room. From the sun. Hell, from all the suns. It sparked like the brightest star in the sky.

 _Gamma draconis_ , that random corner of his brain supplied again. _The Zenith Star_.

Harry blinked the thought away as Draco used the hand not buried in Harry's hair to shove at his pants. He lifted and shimmied his hips, and between the two of them they managed to free Draco from the silk with minimal shifting.

Draco kicked them off his ankle, heedless of where in the room they landed. Harry didn't care either.

All he cared about was that Draco was spreading his legs, drawing Harry closer with that hand in his hair. He shoved Harry's hand away from his cock, however, wrapping his own fingers around the base.

As much as he wanted to touch, he obeyed the unspoken command, teasing his fingers up the inside of Draco's thigh instead, before moving up to cup his balls. He rolled the tender sack in his palm, squeezing and tugging firmly but gently, drawing a sharp gasp from Draco.

He jerked Harry's head back a little, sending another crackle of pain-pleasure down Harry's spine, making his toes curl.

The smooth, spongy head of Draco's cock pressed against Harry's lower lip, a thick bead of clear fluid welling at the slit. His tongue flickered out to taste, but Draco pulled him away. Harry was unashamed of his whimper. He pressed his heavy cock against the bed, staring up into Draco's eyes.

"Close your mouth," Draco ordered.

Sweat prickling his brow, breath blowing loud through his nostrils, Harry did as Draco asked.

Draco stared down at him, some dark and thrilling combination of triumph, tenderness, and ownership shining from his eyes. Harry continued his gentle massage of Draco's testicles as the other man rubbed the head of his cock against Harry's closed lips, painting them with the slick stickiness of his salty pre-cum.

Draco pulled his prick away again, his chest rising and falling with jagged breaths.

"Lick your lips."

Harry's tongue swept out before the words had fully left Draco's mouth, savoring the tang of the intimate fluid. He sucked it from his lips, adding yet another note to that file in his mind.

He wanted to know how Draco tasted everywhere. His instep, the jutting bone of his slender ankle, the back of his knee, the crease of his legs, the nape of his neck, the dip of his spine. Everywhere.

He wanted to press his tongue to every visible inch of Draco skin and catalogue each and every slight shift of changing flavor, spiciness to sweetness, bitterness to salt, until he could identify the other man with his eyes closed and his hands bound behind his back.

He hoped he would have the time, that this wasn't his only chance. But if it was, he was damn sure going to make the most of it.

Harry watched Draco's face as he lapped up every trace of pre-cum the other man had slicked onto his lips and reveled at the earth-shaking desire blazing from those silver eyes. Teenaged Harry never would have asked Draco Malfoy for so much as the time; but he wasn't a teenager any longer and he loved the wicked flare in Draco's pupils every time he begged.

"Please, Draco… More." He closed his lips to offer them again. They tingled, the sensation rushing down his neck, tightening his nipples and his balls, making his dick throb.

Draco gave a jerk of his chin, pressing his cock back against Harry's mouth. He rubbed it back and forth for a moment, teasing Harry's lips. Harry stretched forward as much as Draco's grip on his hair allowed, seeking more contact.

"Is this what you want, Potter?" He tapped it gently against Harry's lips, his tone taunting, mouth curled to the side.

Harry nodded.

"Suck it, then. Open your mouth and take me in. I want to see Harry Potter suck my cock."

He didn't need any further encouragement.

He opened his mouth and slid out his tongue to wrap around the flushed, flared head. Draco groaned, low and guttural. Harry's insides clenched at the wanton sound. He sank down on Draco's shaft, sucking slowly, tongue tracing the swollen veins and ridges.

Draco watched Harry take him down completely, mouth parted slightly. When Harry swallowed around the head of his cock, taking Draco into his throat, Draco hissed. Harry breathed deeply of the strong, sweet, clean scent of Draco's body.

Draco's head fell back, his eyes closed. They snapped open and dropped back to where Harry's lips stretched around his cock.

Harry took his time, used his lips and tongue and hands and even the faintest edge of teeth. He pushed Draco's pulsing shaft up against his taut, quivering belly so he could take the soft, heavy weight of Draco's testicles onto his tongue. He sucked and rolled them in his mouth, watching the ecstasy twist the other man's face. Draco's brow scrunched, his nostrils flared. A muscle in his jaw jumped as he curled his upper lip back, baring just the edge of his teeth.

"Gah! Merlin, Harry, that's… that's _so_ good."

He hummed his own pleasure at Draco's words around his mouthful of throbbing flesh. Draco's hips bucked.

Harry had done this many times during his exploratory period. He'd found he enjoyed it, the weight on his tongue, the ache in his jaw, the way it made his lips tingle. He loved the feel of the satin thin skin on a man's shaft, the smoothness of the spongy head, the salty sweet taste. During those numerous encounters, he'd imagined more than once that the prick sliding between his eager lips was Draco's. So many times, honestly, that he had felt haunted by the sensual ghost of the sharp blond.

The real thing was infinitely better.

He lapped at the underside of Draco's shaft, paying special attention to the dip just beneath the head, before sucking the hot length back into his mouth. He used the very tip of his tongue to toy with the weeping slit, delighting in the sharp flavor.

Draco's hands fisted in Harry's hair, but he made no attempt to control Harry's movements. Not that Harry would have minded. In fact, the idea of merely holding on while Draco pumped himself into Harry's mouth made Harry press his cock hard against the bedspread and whimper.

As if reading his mind, Draco's lips tipped into a wicked grin. "Next time."

The words were ragged with Draco's panting breath. Harry moaned at the promise in them and bobbed his head — in acknowledgement and to take more of Draco's cock. Draco gasped, sighed, groaned, cursed. He babbled praise and nonsense. And Harry's name. Over and over as Harry took him in all the way to the root and then pulled back until only the head rested on his tongue.

It all sounded good to Harry, egging him on.

He moved faster, sucked harder. He stopped trying to take Draco's long shaft deep and instead wrapped his fingers around the base in a tight, squeezing circle and stroked in time with his gliding mouth. Draco's hips lifted reflexively as soon as Harry withdrew, seeking to bury himself in the warm wetness of Harry's mouth again.

All Draco's noises had been reduced to wordless murmuring, but for Harry's name.

The flush on Draco's chest and throat deepened, his fingers twisted in Harry's hair, pulling tight. Then, Harry watched as Draco's eyelids fluttered. His mouth opened on a silent, breathless gasp as the head of his cock swelled on Harry's tongue.

Harry pulled back a bit, letting the first jet take him on the lips and chin. He knew instinctively how much the other man would enjoy seeing him marked by his seed. He wasn't wrong.

Draco's eyes narrowed, he hissed through clenched teeth, thrusting upward with a lust-soaked growl. Harry obligingly took Draco's spurting cock back into his mouth, sucking as he gently kneaded Draco's tight sack.

After another few powerful pumps of creamy fluid, Harry dropped his head until Draco's prick brushed the back of his throat and swallowed.

Draco cupped the back of Harry's head, holding Harry to him as he shuddered and twitched. Harry nuzzled into the warm, damp flesh of Draco's groin, basking in the feeling of the other man's trembling body.

When he drew slowly back, Draco's fingers slipped from his hair down the back of his neck to squeeze the muscles there.

"Bloody hell, Potter."

Harry pulled off, lapping briefly at a final bead of milky fluid that welled up from the small slit. He licked his swollen, tingling lips and grinned. Draco's hands helped him along as he crawled back up the bed, pulling at his shoulders until they were once again face-to-face.

His long thumbs stroked the edge of Harry's jaw, angling Harry's head so he could run his tongue over Harry's chin, licking up the remnants of his own come before attacking Harry's mouth with fevered lust.

Draco fed Harry his tongue like he'd fed him his cock, forcefully but teasingly. Harry could taste the mingled flavors of Draco's seed and his own skin on the thrusting, flickering appendage. Draco claimed his mouth, over and over, until the blood pounded in Harry's temples and pooled, hot and heavy, in his groin.

He wasn't even aware he was clutching tightly to Draco's shoulders until the other man shifted to slide his lips down to Harry's throat.

"They should call you 'The Boy Who Lived to Suck Cock'," Draco drawled, voice thick and velvet with the remains of his orgasm. "Because that was bloody brilliant."

Draco's eyes gleamed, a pleased smile curving his lips.

"It was like you couldn't get enough of me."

Harry stroked a hand down Draco's back, squeezed his hip. He licked his lips, still tasting the lingering salt of Draco's come. He met Draco's eyes, ignoring the rattling thump of his own heartbeat.

"I couldn't. I can't."

The admission was raw and breathless, and Draco kissed it from his lips. He pressed Harry back until he was lying flat, bending over him in order to press their mouths back together. Harry couldn't help but close his eyes in pleasure as Draco's hand explored his chest and shoulders. He stroked Harry's skin as if he, too, couldn't get enough.

He didn't touch Harry's cock, however, despite the fact that it reared from its thatch of dark hair, thick and flushed, and leaked a long strand of clear pre-cum down onto his muscled belly. In fact, his fingers caressed no lower than Harry's hip, avoiding the twitching length of his shaft with teasing, dexterous purpose.

Draco kissed and petted Harry's torso until Harry was whimpering and bucking up into the air, desperate for friction. Despite the fact that he'd already had an earth-shattering orgasm earlier, he was shaking with need once again.

Draco did that to him. Turned his very blood to Fiendfyre and his nerves to lightning. Each time those clever fingers toyed with the tight bead of one of his nipples, it sent steaks of pleasure straight to the base of his spine.

"Let me…" He breathed the words against Harry's lips without elaborating. Harry didn't care.

"Yes!" Whatever it was, yes.

Draco chuckled softly and then proceeded to drag his mouth away from Harry's. He pressed open-mouthed kisses to Harry's jaw, his throat. He trailed his tongue in a long, wet line over the curve of Harry's shoulder.

He tasted Harry's collarbone, the crook of his elbow. His tongue traced erotic patterns on Harry's sternum as he traced the tensing, defined muscles over his ribs. He dipped his tongue into the ridges of muscle on Harry's abdomen, pulled the flesh of Harry's hip into his teeth and sucked.

Harry watched him with wide eyes and ragged breath, fingers clutching at the soft sheets and twisting them. Draco's pink mouth explored the soft rise of his pectorals and the hollow at the base of his throat.

No inch of skin between his waist and lips was left untouched by Draco's mouth, tongue, and teeth.

The slow, deliberate attention left Harry squirming and begging, but the other man ignored his pleas and continued at his own maddening pace.

When he reached Harry's mouth again, he took it with the same slow deliberation before pulling back to nip at Harry's lips.

"Turn over."

Harry shuddered at the low command, skin tensing and twitching like a horse beset by biting flies. Only he was beset by breath-stealing shocks of pleasure sparking all along his body at Draco's words. He swallowed, any response he might have formulated sticking in his throat.

Instead of speaking, he rolled onto his stomach, pillowing his cheek on his folded arms. Harry turned his face toward Draco, watching the sweep of his long lashes over his eyes and the curling corners of his full lips.

He'd never really thought about Draco's mouth, not the shape of it. Or, he supposed he had, only he'd remembered it wrong. He'd thought Draco's lips were thin. Perhaps he'd got that impression from all the smirking. But they weren't.

The crests of Draco's upper lip were pronounced and pointed, with a deep dip in the center that begged a tracing tongue. The lower lip was a thick, full curve that extended out slightly, almost pouting, ready to be sucked. It was quite inviting. Harry wondered how he'd never noticed before.

Perhaps he'd never seen it this soft, wet, and red.

Draco's teeth nibbled at that pouting lower lip as he stroked his palm over Harry's left biceps, up to his shoulder. His lashes hid his eyes.

Harry didn't mind the brief break from that powerful, intoxicating gaze. He enjoyed looking at Draco, watching him follow the trajectory of his hand as it caressed the slightly bunched muscles of Harry's shoulder.

Draco leaned forward, pressing his mouth to Harry's shoulder blade and biting gently. Harry tensed and shuddered at the slight sting of teeth. He felt Draco smile against his skin. Draco bent over him further, tongue tracing Harry's ear. He opened his mouth over the nape of Harry's neck, fingers sliding up into Harry's hair.

Then he moved down, much as he'd done when Harry had lain on his back. He trailed firm hands down either side of Harry's spine, pressing fingers into the rippling muscle as he peppered kisses along the knobs of Harry's vertebrae.

Neither of them spoke as Draco worked his way down to Harry's bum, breath warm and tickling against Harry's skin.

Once again, Draco skipped his most sensitive area, scooting down to the end of the bed. Harry watched him over his shoulder, heedless of how far he had to crane his neck. The muscles protested quietly, but he didn't care. He was unable to take his eyes off Draco, kneeling naked between his feet, head bent, blond hair falling forward to obscure his face.

Draco rested one hand on either of Harry's ankles, thumbs rubbing tantalizing circles around the bone. He let go of Harry's right ankle to drag his knuckles over the sole of Harry's foot. Draco lifted his gaze slowly, sliding it all the way up Harry's prone body until their eyes met.

Silver irises gleamed through the damp blond fringe, blazing with desire. Again, Harry glimpsed that hint of smug satisfaction, as if he'd always known they'd end up here. It made Harry's lungs struggle to expel and take in oxygen.

Not that he was worried this was all some ploy on Draco's behalf. Once, he might have been. Now, however, he was an adult. He knew better how to trust himself. And others.

There was no doubt Draco was pleased with himself. He obviously considered it an accomplishment to have gotten Harry into this position, splayed out naked on his belly, trembling with anticipation for Draco's next touch. Harry couldn't really deny him that.

Anyway, he knew in his heart that Draco meant him no ill will. Not anymore. He was pleased to have Harry at his mercy because he _wanted_ Harry. He might even crave Harry as much as Harry craved him. Harry stifled his moan against his shoulder.

Draco massaged Harry's calves, tongue worrying the corner of his mouth, eyes burning silver. Other than that, he didn't move. Harry shifted restlessly, whimpering a bit at the drag of his cock over the soft sheets.

"Draco, what —"

"Shhh." His eyes flicked up to Harry, stilling him. "Don't rush me, Potter. I've been picturing you like this for a long time. Let me savor it."

Heat crawled up from Harry's belly, making the skin of his chest, throat, and cheeks prickle. Draco chuckled, sweeping his fingers upward.

"I love it when you flush all red like that, Potter. I believe it means I'm doing something right."

He was doing everything right, as far as Harry was concerned. He'd never been so aroused in his entire life. It made it hard to breathe, to think. Draco's trimmed fingernails scratched lightly down the backs of his thighs, his thumbs slipped teasingly into the bend of Harry's knees.

Harry'd never known the backs of his knees were so sensitive, but the slightest touch of Draco's fingers seemed to send tingling sparks of white-hot pleasure straight to his balls. Harry moaned, biting at the flesh of his arm to keep from begging.

"How long?" He rasped the words, unable to keep them on his tongue.

Draco spread his hands on Harry's thighs, pushing his right leg up, bending it until Harry was spread wide open before him. Draco's gaze was hot as he stared down at Harry.

"How long have I pictured you like this, open and willing and shaking for my touch?"

Harry gulped, sweat trickling down his temple, and nodded. Draco's eyes went a little fuzzy, distant, even as his hands moved up to slide over Harry's hips. He squeezed.

"Fifth year, I think," he admitted roughly. "Maybe sixth. Things are a bit of a blur those last few years at Hogwarts."

Harry's heart pounded so hard he was sure Draco would hear it thumping against the mattress.

"R-really? Back then?" He remembered his own obsession with Draco during sixth year. It had been all-consuming and intense, but he'd never once pictured the other man naked. Not until later, after the war.

Draco nodded, lips twisting, hands gliding down to palm the taut muscle of Harry's buttocks. Harry gasped as those wicked thumbs swept through the sensitive crease. Draco hummed softly.

"Yes, even back then. Not that I wanted to, mind. I had begun to suspect that my interests didn't lay with Pansy and her burgeoning bosom by fifth year but there was a world of difference between wanking over blokes, and wanking over _Harry sodding Potter_."

Draco's brows lifted, the sideways tug of his lips taking any sting out of the words. Not that there was any. At the thought of Draco lying in his green-draped bed in the Slytherin dorms, robes thrown carelessly open, fisting that long, perfect cock to ecstasy over thoughts of him, Harry closed his eyes and moaned.

"I couldn't help it though. When I lay in bed at night, it was thoughts of you, like this…" Draco tipped his head to take in Harry's sprawled form. "Waiting for me. Wanting me. Eager for my touch. That's what got me hard."

Still did, judging from the rising thickness of his cock. Harry panted, breath a warm mist in his face as he watched Draco, mesmerized, wondering if this is how snakes felt before snake charmers.

"I do." Harry couldn't refrain from assuring him when he saw the faintest flicker of uncertainty pass behind Draco's eyes. "Want you. And… and I am…." He licked dry, tingling lips, felt his face flame, but forced the last word out on a painful rasp. "Eager."

He could have said more, that it had always been Draco, really. Not counting his silly childhood crushes on Cho and Ginny, his desperate attempts to be 'normal', anyway. The other men, no matter who they'd been…

Harry had tried, but they were all Draco to him. As close as he'd thought he'd ever get to the real thing.

Draco smiled.

"Good."

He bent slowly then, keeping his eyes on Harry's as he lowered his mouth once again to Harry's back. Harry tensed at the touch of Draco's warm, moist mouth against the dip just above his buttocks. His breath ghosted across the sensitive flesh, sending chill-bumps skittering up Harry's spine.

Draco nipped his thigh next, sliding fingertips along the crease of Harry's leg.

Harry buried his face in his pillow, groaning at the feel of Draco's tongue brushing teasingly along the seam of his testicles. He shifted desperately, shamelessly lifting his hips to give the other man better access.

Draco chuckled darkly against his skin, the warm vibrations wrenching a cry from Harry's throat, muffled by the fat feather pillow. Draco seemed to hear it anyway. He hummed almost silently as he wrapped his lips around Harry's sensitive sack. Harry felt it more than heard it, reverberating up his spine.

His sphincter clenched in pleasure as Draco licked upward, stopping just short of the tender ring.

Draco's strong, clever hands stroked comfortingly over Harry's bum, squeezing firmly before pulling him open. Heat blazed through him, both embarrassment and anticipation. His hips jerked, his cock throbbing as Draco's breath wafted teasingly against him.

"Oh, Potter," Draco murmured, the puff of air exploding on Harry's nerve endings. Harry shivered, shoulders hunching as he squeezed the pillow mercilessly.

One of Draco's fingers traced down the crease of Harry's buttocks, brushing over the sensitive pucker, making Harry gasp. He rubbed deliciously slowly around Harry's exposed hole.

"You look perfect like this. All spread out and aching for me."

Harry groaned.

"Draco, _please_."

He was expecting it, but Draco's arch, "Please what, Potter?" still sent a frisson of lust crackling through Harry's veins.

Harry's hands fisted so tightly around the satin pillowcase his knuckles cracked. He was surprised he didn't tear the fabric.

Blood pounded in his head and his cock, arousal superheated by the accelerant of anger at Draco's flippant tone and impatience with his slow torture. He turned his head, baring his teeth in a snarl as he stared down the line of his own back to meet Draco's silver gaze where it hovered above the curve of his arse.

"Eat me, _Malfoy_."

Draco barked a surprised laugh. He licked his plump lips and snapped his teeth, eyes twinkling.

"With pleasure."

His tongue was hot and wet as it slithered against Harry's sensitive flesh. Harry sucked in a harsh breath at the lightning storm of sensation that decadent caress set off along his nerve endings. He once again buried his face in the cool satin fabric of the pillow. Cool compared to his flushed, sweating face, at least.

Draco showed him no mercy, despite having seemingly given in to Harry's rough request.

Instead, he continued to torture Harry with slow, broad sweeps of his tongue. He lapped at Harry's hole, nuzzled, even sucked the tight ring between his lips. The tightening coil of fire in Harry's gut grew thicker, heavier, and still Draco teased him.

Harry shamelessly pressed back against Draco's mouth, eyes squeezed shut and panting as sensation crashed over him. Still, he wanted more. Needed more.

When Draco's talented tongue wriggled inside him, Harry threw back his head, the corded muscle of his neck straining as he shouted to his candlelit ceiling. He squeezed the pillow so tightly his shoulders ached and his back almost seized from the unnatural curve of his spine, but he didn't care. It was so good.

"Draco! Fuck. More! _Please_."

Draco's answering moan vibrated through Harry's guts, twisting them. He would have come right then, but Draco's long, slim fingers slid beneath him to wrap around the base of his cock. He pulled his mouth away.

"Not yet, Potter."

He squeezed gently but tightly, staving off Harry's imminent orgasm. Draco panted and rested his cheek against Harry's thigh. Harry could feel the tiny flicker of Draco's impossible lashes tickling his skin.

"It drives me mad, the way you respond to me, Harry."

He rubbed his lips against the lightly furred flesh beneath his cheek, his voice soft. Harry still heard every word. It echoed in his head and chest like shifting bedrock.

"I could easily become addicted to this."

He slid his fist along Harry's cock, dabbling his fingertips through the moisture gathered at the tip and smearing it along Harry's throbbing length, ripping a gasp from Harry's lips.

"Good," Harry moaned. "Good."

Draco lifted his head again and bit gently at Harry's buttock.

"Only if you're addicted to me, too."

Harry would have responded, told Draco he was, had been for probably longer than even he himself had been aware, but Draco's warm, wriggling tongue once more speared him and pleasure gripped his throat like a hand, squeezing any words from it.

At the first press of a finger, Harry pushed eagerly backward, hissing at the slight burn as Draco slid in to the second knuckle. His tongue and lips kept working, even as that finger curled and stroked.

Harry rocked back, matching the rhythm of Draco's thrusting tongue and finger. When he pushed forward, he slid through the loose circle of Draco's slick fingers. It wasn't quite enough to bring him off, but he was close… so close.

Then Draco added another finger, the stretch and sting of it pulling another cry from Harry's gut.

His orgasm receded once again, but the feel of Draco's mouth sliding down to tongue his balls quickly had it ramping back up.

Draco kept him riding that edge for several long minutes, until he was trembling and slick with sweat. His throat ached and his breath was a wet towel in his chest. He was sure he'd been begging, but his ears were ringing too loudly for him to hear himself. He could hear Draco, though. Every low, filthy word.

"Yes, Potter," he crooned against Harry's flesh. "Just like that. Fuck yourself on my fingers. Show me how much you want me inside you."

He heard the snap of a cap and wondered wildly when Draco had retrieved the lube. When he realized the other man must have used a wandless, nonverbal Accio just to make it easier for him to fuck Harry, the show of power had him nearly coming right there.

But Draco read his body too well, and slowed just enough to let the overwhelming pleasure ebb back to a warm press beneath his skin.

Draco let go of Harry's cock, balancing himself with his right hand on Harry's hip as he got to his knees. His other hand kept working Harry open further, twisting and pumping in a slow, brutal rhythm. He kissed his way up Harry's spine, silken fringe tickling up Harry's back until he was breathing against the back of his neck.

"I wish you could see how you look right now, Potter. Flushed and sweaty and groaning, stretched around my fingers, begging for more."

"Is it…" Harry had to suck in a deep breath to get enough air to continue. "Is it as good as you imagined?"

Draco chuckled, his teeth nipping at Harry's shoulder. "Better."

Harry shuddered, arching back to draw Draco's fingers deeper. Draco's tongue teased his ear.

"Maybe next time I'll get a mirror so you can watch me get you ready for my cock. Would you like that?"

He whimpered, unsure if the mention of 'next time' or the situation described was more arousing. Both, he thought.

"Yes," he replied. "Anything. Everything."

The cold drizzle of lube sliding between his cheeks made him tense. Draco pressed in a third finger, twisting and scissoring, increasing that deep burn that sank into Harry's gut. When he spoke, his voice was dark and sharp. It arrowed through Harry with piercing pleasure.

"Be careful what you promise me, Potter. Don't forget how greedy I am."

As Draco's teeth scraped his shoulder, Harry knew it was true.

Draco was the kind of lover who would want Harry to himself. Not that he thought Draco would be clingy or overly possessive. But Harry knew there would be a part of him that Draco would want to be his and his alone.

Not Ron and Hermione's, or the Weasley's, or the Order's, or the Ministry's, or even the foundation's. Just his. Just Draco's.

After having belonged to no one for the first half of his life, and then everyone for the second part, the idea of being Draco's did funny, almost painful things to his heart.

"I want you to," he admitted to Draco breathlessly, turning his head to try and find Draco's mouth. When he did, he murmured against it. "I want you to be greedy with me, Draco."

He was greedy for Draco, too. If he was going to (already did) belong to the other man, Harry wanted Draco to be only his, as well.

Draco's free hand tangled in Harry's hair, using the unruly mop to once again control the angle of the claiming kiss. He pulled his fingers suddenly free of Harry's stretched hole, catching Harry's cry on his tongue.

"Then get on your back again. I want to watch your face as I slide my cock into you for the first time, Potter. I want you to watch mine and know it's me who's fucking you."

The tiny hint of insecurity laced within those words made Harry's heart squeeze.

"I want it to be you, Draco." He turned carefully, untangling their legs and meeting Draco's glowing bright gaze. "No one else."

Color burned high in Draco's cheeks as he watched Harry arrange himself, thighs spread wide on either side of Draco's knees. Harry leaned back on his elbows, the air cool on his heated cock. Beneath him, he could feel the damp spot on the sheet from where he'd been rubbing against it.

Draco drizzled more lube onto his fingers and palm, filling the warm room with its light cinnamon fragrance. It mingled with the scent of the wine and the candles and the musky, salt smell of their sweat and skin and sex.

Harry didn't know if his mouth watered because of that or from the sight of Draco slicking his cock.

He watched as Draco levitated the small bottle Harry had purchased from Wands & Whatnots, the rather innocuously named sex shop in Senshu Alley, over to the bedside table. Draco bit his lip as he smoothed the slippery liquid along the rigid length of his prick, eyeing Harry's own twitching shaft.

Harry reached for it, wanting to stroke himself along with Draco, but the other man shook his head.

"No."

It nearly made him scream not to touch himself, he was so aroused and aching, but Harry dropped his hand onto his thigh instead. His whole pelvis seemed to throb with pleasure, even the bones of hips pliable as warm glass.

Draco pressed the fingers of his right hand over Harry's where it rested on his leg, twining them together as he continued to stroke his own prick.

Harry's gaze was riveted on that pumping fist, his fingers squeezing Draco's. He wanted Draco inside him, badly, but he thought he could lie there and watch the other man pleasure himself until he came. He was so worked up that just the sight and feel of Draco coming on his cock would be enough to send him over without even being touched.

But Draco had other ideas. He disengaged his hand from Harry's after another brief squeeze, and then hooked his fingers under Harry's knee, pulling the leg up to rest in the crook of his arm. Harry's eyes were once again drawn to the tattoo, but now his own thigh obscured it.

Draco's knees guided Harry's legs wider until he could press the slick, tapered head of his cock against Harry's puckered entrance.

Harry's mouth fell open at the feel of that silken, spongy flesh. He had to remind himself to breath as Draco held his gaze and began to push forward. The air was too thick and caught in his throat as the stretched ring of muscle slid around Draco's swollen tip.

His body was beyond ready, easily opening before Draco's firm, gliding push. Harry stared down between them, though he couldn't see from his position. He could watch Draco's face, though, and he did.

Draco watched him back, eyes flickering momentarily to the spot where their bodies were joining before returning to Harry's. But the pleasure tightening Draco's jaw and lips and burning in his eyes was enough to make Harry's cock throb.

A single bead of pre-cum trickled down the side of his shaft to disappear into his pubic hair, which was already sticky with the stuff.

Draco sank into him inch by slow inch, a low, ragged 'haaaahhhh' vibrating at the back of his throat. When he bottomed out, his testicles resting against Harry's lube slick buttocks, they both froze.

Harry tilted his hips, adjusted to the fullness within him, the slight twinge of taking someone so deep. Draco was not a small man. Yet, he felt as if he fit perfectly. Any longer or thicker and Harry would have been uncomfortable. And that curve…

His lids fluttered with the effort not to drift closed. He shifted again, a whimper catching on his tongue. Draco's slippery fingers dug into his hips, holding him still.

"Draco."

Even Harry could hear the wealth of meaning he'd put in that single name. All the things he was feeling and thinking, even those he didn't know or understand. No one had ever accused Harry Potter of eloquence, but he thought he might have achieved it for the very first time in his life — with one word spoken to one man.

Draco lowered his mouth to Harry's, strands of damp blond silk tickling Harry's forehead as they pressed lips. Harry reached up and curled a hand around the back of Draco's slender neck, pulling him down as they battled tongues.

Then Draco began to move.

"Harry." He groaned the name into Harry's mouth, full of awe and wonder and lust and even pain and sorrow and forgiveness and need and _hope_. And longing, so much longing.

He held Harry's hips tight in his hands as he withdrew, pulling out until the flared rim of his cock head tugged at the tight ring of muscle, and then thrust back in, long and deep. The slight curve of his shaft made his prick rub along the soft bundle of nerves that was Harry's prostate like a velvet finger, sending bright bursts of pleasure through Harry's pelvis with each punch of Draco's hips.

Harry pressed his shoulders back against the bed, arching and curling to drive Draco deeper inside him.

The curved headboard creaked beneath his fingers as he gripped it hard, staring down his body to watch Draco fuck him. Harry could only glimpse Draco's slick shaft between his widely spread thighs as he pulled back before sinking in again, but even that brief look made his heart twist and his untouched cock pulse.

Draco had both of Harry's legs hooked over his elbows, hands on Harry's hips, lifting him and spreading him as he drove into the clutching, hot sheath of Harry's arse.

Harry's sculpted stomach muscles clenched with each curl of his body, squeezing things within him tighter. Draco's breath was a ragged, rhythmic pant as he concentrated on his steady, torturous, delicious pace.

Draco did that little hip twist that had driven Harry crazy earlier, and it was even better with Draco buried inside him. So good it made Harry forget how to breathe for a moment. He pressed his head back against his pillow, arching his throat in an almost panicked attempt to suck in air.

Pleasure was a tight, flaming coil deep within him, radiating from the spot where Draco's cock slid in and out of him.

It pulsed through him — out to the very tips of his toes and his lips — a throbbing counterpoint to his heartbeat. Not just in his chest, everywhere. As if his whole body had become a great heart, pulsing and thick with excited blood.

Harry blinked sweat from his lashes. He realized he'd been talking for some time, though he didn't know what he'd been saying. Words still tumbled from his tingling lips.

"Harder, Draco. Please, god. Need you. More. Faster! Your cock feels so damn good in me. Draco, damn it, _please_!"

The bed creaked and groaned with their pounding rhythm, but Draco didn't speed up. He worked his cock in and out with those deep, plunging, steady thrusts and watched Harry with narrowed gleaming silver eyes.

He shook his head. His own words were just as breathless, disjointed, and ragged as Harry's.

"Not yet, Potter. Not yet. Wanted this for too long. You. Need to — Damn that article!" His eyes blazed on that, snapping so brightly Harry gasped. Draco's fingers dug into his hips.

"I never thought. I wanted it to be lies, damn you. Merlin! Thinking of you with those other men…"

Harry licked sweat from his upper lip, shook his head. He couldn't think how to explain that none of them, even the ones he had cared about, had been able to hold a single candle to the _memory_ of Draco, let alone the real thing.

"Draco…"

Despite the heat in Draco's voice and the burning intensity of his eyes, his maddening, metronome pace didn't falter. It kept up, that second throbbing heartbeat under Harry's skin steady, dangling him on the edge of monumental pleasure without ever pushing him over.

"No, Potter," Draco growled through gritted teeth. "I'm going to make you want me as much as I want you. _Then_ I'll let you come."

Harry laughed, the sound strangled, tears burning the corners of his eyes. Draco's thin brows drew down over his sharp blade of a nose, the scowl doing twisty pleasant things to Harry's guts.

"I already do, you prat. Always have done. Just a bit — _ah_! Fuck, _please_ , Draco! — slow on the uptake, as usual. Now will you please just _fuck me_?"

To Harry's howling displeasure, Draco didn't speed up. In fact, he slowed, his hips moving languidly as he stared down at Harry's flushed face. Harry gritted his teeth so hard his jaw ached and glared at the blond above him, trying not to notice the way the candlelight glistened off the sweat that sheened Draco's opalescent skin.

"I swear to Merlin, Malfoy, if you stop now, I will hex you into next week."

A grin of such happiness and lasciviousness spread across Draco's face that it momentarily stopped Harry's heart. It began again when Draco lowered Harry's legs and leaned down to capture Harry's mouth instead.

Harry let go of the headboard and wrapped his arms around Draco's back, pressing them chest to sweat-slick chest.

Draco rested on his elbows and slid his hands once again into Harry's hair. For all he'd always teased Harry for it, Harry was beginning to suspect Draco quite liked his hopelessly messy locks. He cupped the back of Harry's head in both palms and devoured his mouth. Harry could barely breathe, but he didn't care because Draco once again began to move his hips.

His thrusts were shorter at this angle, quicker, harder. They were just what Harry wanted. Needed.

The room filled with the sounds of sex, wet and slick, the slap of flesh and smack of lips. Grunts, pants, groans, murmured broken words and gasps. The carved headboard thunk-thunk-thunked against the wall. It rattled the wine glasses on the bedside table; they added their almost musical tinkling to the chorus. The mattress squeaked.

Harry rocked against Draco, the sensitive, engorged head of his almost painfully aroused cock dragging over the other man's taut, slippery abdomen. The sounds filling Harry's ears only added to the level of his lust. It was more sensory input crowding along his neurons, lighting them up.

Beneath his back, the cotton sheets were damp with sweat. Draco's skin was hot and slick against his. Draco's hands in his hair, gripping tightly, sent little shocks along his scalp. When he wrapped his legs around Draco's lean waist, the taut muscles of Draco's buttocks flexed beneath his calves with each plunging thrust.

Much like everything else he'd come to expect in regard to his former adversary, being fucked by Draco Malfoy got beneath his skin like nothing else.

That second beat within his blood grew faster now, more all consuming, ramping up with each snap of Draco's hips and each spearing thrust of his cock. Harry clutched at Draco's back, fingers slipping over slippery skin. Draco's own flesh seemed to pulse with the same cadence.

Was it his, Harry wondered? That second fluttering rhythm that was driving him toward an orgasm that seemed poised to rock him down to his very molecules… was it Draco's heartbeat? Draco's heart beating inside him, pressing against his skin, ready to burst out. As if Draco had slid more than just his cock into Harry.

And what about him? Was Draco feeling that second drumbeat that felt both foreign and utterly right too? Was he feeling Harry's heart beating in his lips and fingertips, as if their skin had somehow begun to fuse and make them one for just this moment?

The two beats, Harry's heart and that other, would soon be beating perfectly in sync.

It was only a thought, and yet it whirled through him like a funnel cloud of liquid flame, sucking up every drop of pleasure within him and then flinging it violently and suddenly outward. Harry clung to Draco, spine curving. He tried to form words, but none came.

He didn't need them anyway. Once again, Draco seemed to know exactly what was in his mind.

"Yes, Harry," he panted in Harry's ear, tongue twisting and flicking into the sensitive shell. "I want to feel you squeeze my cock. Do it. Come for me."

Harry didn't think he could have stopped if he tried, but Draco's words, hot and ragged, were the shining needle of pinprick sharp pleasure that tipped him over the edge. He came with a strangled shout, the orgasm seizing his whole body from within and squeezing it.

His cock pulsed as pleasure ripped up his spine and stole his breath, splashing warm, slick spurts of come on his belly, chest, and throat. It felt as if it went on for hours, his muscles rippling, clenching and unclenching around Draco's still thrusting prick.

Draco rode Harry through the crashing storm of his orgasm, lips sucking his cries up, hips pistoning. His thighs slapped Harry's arse, his breath a hoarse exhalation as he drove into Harry's fluttering, squeezing hole over and over again.

The bed struck the wall so hard one of the wine glasses tipped with a startled ding! It rolled from the table and crashed into musical little pieces.

Neither man paid it any attention.

Harry licked at Draco's tongue, murmuring his name. He slid his hands down to grip Draco's arse and urge him deeper, harder.

"God, Draco, _please_. Do it. Let me feel you fill me up."

Draco's silver eyes were wild as he groaned, slamming into Harry, burying himself to the hilt. He repeated the jagged, primal thrust, grinding into Harry, three more times. Four. And then Harry heard Draco's breath hitch and felt his shaft swell.

A moment later, Draco's fingers tightened against Harry's scalp. His pale silver eyes went wide, his ruby-lipped mouth falling open. He cried out Harry's name, throat arched, the sound rough and ragged as if it had been torn from his chest. Draco surged against him, pressing so tightly to Harry that he stole Harry's breath.

The hot pulse of Draco coming inside him made Harry's guts clench again as another wave of tingling pleasure swept through him. Draco hissed, pushing into Harry's once again squeezing channel even as his cock continued to fill Harry with hot, sticky seed.

Draco slowed, returning to the teasing, leisurely pace he'd tortured Harry with earlier. Harry sighed. He slowed further, until they were just barely undulating against each other as the last wisps of orgasm trailed through them both.

They were no longer kissing, but Draco pressed his forehead against Harry's, their lips brushing with every breath.

It took several more minutes before they both lay still, their muscles loosening as warm, golden pleasure settled over them. Neither moved nor spoke. The bedroom was full of thick, damp quiet.

Harry could feel Draco's heart thumping against his chest. In time with his own heart. They both raced, trapped hummingbirds. But as they lay against each other, just breathing, they began to slow. Harry stroked his hands up and down Draco's slick back, enjoying the satin feel of the other man's flesh under his fingers and the fact that he was able to touch Draco like this.

Draco stroked Harry's damp hair back from his forehead. He traced the famous lightning scar with the edge of his thumb, lips twitching against Harry's. Harry huffed out a breath through his nose, unable to think of a smart response to Draco's obvious mirth.

Then Draco kissed him again, and he forgot the English language entirely.

It was a different kiss than any of the others had been, softer, yet somehow more possessive. Deeper. Before, the delicious glide of Draco's tongue had been more insistent. He had demanded, conquered, claimed. The long, slow, hot kiss Draco gave Harry this time was just as claiming, but it was more confident. It didn't demand surrender; it presupposed it.

Before, Draco's kiss had wanted to make Harry his. Now, it said he knew Harry already was.

Harry sighed into the drugging sweetness of it.

Draco lifted his head, glanced down at Harry's chest. His brow quirked the slightest bit and the corner of his mouth twitched. Harry tilted his chin, trying to see what Draco was looking at. Had he left behind a love bite? But Draco tugged his hair gently, urging Harry to tip his head back.

Harry's breath caught a second later as Draco's tongue lapped at the hollow at the base of his throat, licking up a dollop of his come. Draco took his time, slowly cleaning up the stray splatters with soft, gentle flicks of his tongue. When he was finished, he kissed Harry deeply again, feeding him the taste.

Another note for Harry's mental file — How Draco Tastes When He Tastes of Me. Harry shuddered.

Draco propped himself up, his slowly softening cock slipping out of Harry. Harry winced a little at the tug and the lingering sense of emptiness left behind. But then Draco collapsed onto his side next to Harry and rubbed his cheek against Harry's shoulder. He blew out a breath that tickled Harry's damp chest hair.

"Merlin and Morgana!"

Harry laughed, still a bit breathless himself. He reached over and brushed Draco's fringe back from his broad forehead. It fell immediately in his eyes again.

"Yes," Harry agreed, lips curling up. "Quite."

Neither of them said another word for several long minutes. Harry rested his hand against Draco's throat. Draco's fingers pressed lightly against Harry's sternum. They blinked sleepily at each other.

Once his heart rate had finally returned to normal and his breath had slowed, Harry began to feel all the little aches and pains that had gotten lost in the rush of adrenaline and endorphins. His back and bum ached, his lips were sore, and he was all sticky.

It was bloody brilliant.

A slow, cheek-splitting smile spread across his face. Draco gave him one back. Harry brushed pointlessly at Draco's fringe again.

"You'll stay?"

He asked, though it wasn't really a question. None of the earlier doubts that had swirled through him when Draco got out of bed to get the wine were lurking in the shadows of his mind. It was too full of bright white happiness.

Besides, outside his bedroom windows, the sky was just beginning to lighten toward dawn.

Draco, being Malfoy, didn't actually respond. He lifted that single brow. His lashes swept down, head tipping to take in the long line of their naked bodies pressed against each other and their general state of sticky, languid post-coital bliss, and then rose again to fix Harry with a pointed gaze.

He could not have said, 'What do _you_ think, Potter?' anymore clearly if he had spoken out loud.

Harry snorted, shifting slightly on the mussed sheets. A twinge of pain darted through him, reminding him it had been quite a while since he'd let someone screw him into the mattress… and that no one had ever done it quite as well as Draco Malfoy before.

Seeing his discomfort, Draco once again rolled to his feet.

Harry vaguely remembered the sound of shattering glass in the midst of their truly epic shag and popped up onto his elbows.

"Mind your feet!"

Draco paused, unconcerned with his nakedness, and glanced down at the floor with its scattering of broken wineglass shards twinkling like diamonds. Both brows rose this time as he lifted his gaze to Harry's.

For some inexplicable reason, Harry felt a flush stinging his cheeks.

"Don't look at me," he said, sweeping his hand at the pieces and casting a quick nonverbal Reparo. "That was all you."

"Yes," Draco replied, that sharp, smug smile curving his kiss-swollen pink lips. "It was, wasn't it?"

Harry's blush deepened, but Draco turned his back and padded silently into the attached bathroom. The water turned on and Harry heard the faint splashes of Draco washing up.

He set the repaired wineglass back on the bedside table and considered pouring them each another glass. But it was nearly dawn and he had just been quite thoroughly shagged. Sleep sounded much more the thing, just then.

Sleep with Draco's long, lean, naked body beside him.

Harry wondered if Draco snored. He wondered if _he_ snored. He lay back, staring at the ceiling and wondering if he should have maybe asked one of those men he'd attempted (and failed spectacularly) to have relationships with in the past how he was to sleep with. Apart from the sex bit. Harry knew he was rather good at that.

But of the few that had progressed past one night stands and random hookups, he'd never thought to inquire whether he hogged the covers or took up the whole bed or snored like a chainsaw. They'd never brought it up, but then they might not. And Harry had never worried about it before, because… well, it had never really been all that important, to be honest.

Now, though. Well. Now, it was Draco.

What if he hated sleeping with Harry and decided to sneak out before Harry woke up and never come back again?

He worked himself into such an internal lather worrying that he jerked in shock at the touch of the warm flannel against his inner thigh. His gaze jumped to Draco's face.

"Relax. Let me clean you up a bit."

He flushed again. Not embarrassed about the sticky mess, considering how very pleasant it had been to make it. But none of his other…. none of the others had ever done that.

Harry stared up into Draco's face as Draco swiped the warm, soft, damp cloth over his skin, cleaning away the unpleasant film of drying come and sticky lube. Draco's lashes hid his eyes as he watched his own hand stroke the cloth over Harry's body. He urged Harry over with a firm but gentle hand on Harry's hip, dragging the cloth carefully over the still stretched and stinging pucker of his arse.

With a murmured spell Harry didn't recognize, and wished he did because it was quite handy, the sheets were once again dry and clean, as if freshly laundered.

"Budge up," Draco ordered, nudging Harry's hip with his knee.

Harry rolled back over, scooting to make room for the other man. Draco flicked his wrist, sending the soiled cloth into Harry's hamper. He didn't bother with the clothes that still littered the furniture and floor. Harry supposed it wasn't worth the bother, considering Draco at least would have to put the same clothes on again when he got up.

The unwelcome thought of Draco dressing and leaving slid away as Draco mumbled a _Nox Ignesco_ , extinguishing all but one of the guttering candles. The faint dawn light had not yet begun to push back the dark, so they were both swathed in velvet shadows.

Draco crawled onto the left side of the bed, laid his head on the pillow, and tugged Harry over into the curve of his body, shifting until Harry's head rested on Draco's chest.

Harry smiled, sliding his thigh over Draco's to tangle their legs, enjoying the warm press of the other man against him, still a bit amused by Draco's silent arranging of Harry's position to his liking.

There was something so _Draco_ about the action.

He stretched his arm over Draco's chest, pleased that Draco hadn't just given him his back and gone to sleep. He half expected some grumbled comment about his Gryffindor-ish need to cuddle, but Draco wrapped his left arm around Harry's back, sliding his fingers into Harry's hair, and twined the fingers of his other hand through Harry's where they rested on his chest.

Harry pressed his smile into the warm, fragrant skin of Draco's neck. _Draco Malfoy_ was a _snuggler_.

"Hush, you," Draco rumbled, once again using whatever eerie magic allowed him to read Harry so well. It wasn't _actual_ magic; he hadn't felt anything touch his mind. Draco just seemed to know the way his mind worked.

The thought set up a warm glow under Harry's ribs, which grew when he felt Draco's lips brush his forehead.

"We should sleep," Draco said, fingers sifting through Harry's hair. "Because I plan to do that to you again when we wake up."

Harry chuckled even as his skin prickled with fresh but, thankfully, faint desire. He was finished.

"Do you then? And what if I said I wanted to do that to you?"

Honestly, Harry had tried it the other way round a few times, but generally preferred getting fucked to doing the fucking. But the thought of sinking into the slick, tight heat of Draco's body and leaving him with that faint pain-pleasure tinge of emptiness when he withdrew was enough to make him reconsider.

His spent cock tried once again to rally, twitching against Draco's hip. It was Draco's turn to chuckle.

"I suppose that could be arranged, Potter." He stroked the back of Harry's neck, making him shiver. Another tingle of pleasure tried to crawl up his spine.

"Gah! Stop that! Is this some new plot to kill me? Shag me to death?"

Draco rubbed his nose along Harry's.

"You've figured me out. This is really a very elaborate plan to have my revenge via copious amounts of toe-curling, earth-shattering sex. How am I doing so far?"

Harry flushed hotly at the 'toe-curling, earth-shattering' part, although he definitely agreed.

"Brilliant. Let me get a few hours sleep and I'll go to my death with a smile on my face." Harry shrugged. "Wouldn't be the first time."

As the mirth drained from the darkened room, Harry made a mental note to himself that that time he died was not the best post-sex afterglow conversation topic. Draco sighed, fingers squeezing the back of Harry's neck.

Silence drew over them like a blanket. Harry pulled the actual blanket up higher, and then reached for Draco's hand again. Instead of twining his fingers once more with Draco's, he caught the other man's wrist, turning it until the smooth skin of his right inner forearm was visible.

Harry had finally seen the tattoo in those last few frantic moments of mind-blowing sex, but now he had a chance to actually study it when his brain was functioning, albeit somewhat slow with satiation and oncoming sleep.

Draco let him tilt his arm, his heartbeat a steady thump under Harry's ear, and held still when Harry released him to trace his fingers over the graceful dark lines.

Like the Antipodean Opaleye on his left arm, the tattoo on his right was done in painstakingly realistic detail. Though, where the dragon was done in full color, the stag was done in blacks, greys, and whites.

It stood proudly, curving around Draco's arm, head up, impressive rack of antlers branching black against Draco's pale skin. Harry stroked his finger along the slope of its neck, marveling at the lifelike rendering. It blinked at him, coat shivering, one hoof pawing at Draco's wrist.

Harry stared at the almost photo-realistic depiction of his Patronus on Draco's skin, taking in the faint white glow that surrounded the solid version of the misty creature. He followed the dips and valleys of the line with his fingernail, but it took a minute to realize the stag was encased in a bright white aura of flame.

It was beautiful and powerful and… confusing.

"Why?"

Draco sighed and rubbed his left arm against Harry's back. Harry had the odd sensation of the dragon tattoo shifting against his skin and shivered a little.

"I told you that day at Hogwarts changed everything for me. It was like… part of me did die in that room, Harry. Some other me escaped the flames." He traced the edge of Harry's shoulder blade with his fingertips, speaking into the darkness.

"I considered a phoenix, given the lore, but… It didn't feel right."

Draco pulled back a bit, tucking his chin so he could meet Harry's eyes. Harry slid back as well, wanting to see the other man's face as he spoke. He kept hold of Draco's forearm though, fingers still stroking Draco's stag tattoo.

"If it had been down to me, all of me would have died there. I didn't rise from those ashes on the power of my own wings." Draco's lips tugged sideways. "I rode on the back of someone else."

He slipped his fingers back into Harry's hair, his eyes a bit distant and haunted. No doubt remembering that night.

"I didn't want to forget that. It felt important not to move forward as if I'd done it all on my own. So…" He shrugged, lashes lowering over his eyes. "I got the dragon over what was left of the Mark, to remind me that I belonged to no one but myself."

Harry's breath stuttered as Draco lifted his gaze once more, his eyes the silver gleam of moonlight.

"I got the stag to remind me that you had given me back my life. I didn't want to waste that gift. And… perhaps I wanted to remember what it really means to be brave, as well. "

Draco fell silent, letting Harry absorb his words. He'd thought perhaps he would feel weird that Draco had a tattoo meant to remind him of Harry, but he found he didn't. Apart from the fact that Draco with tattoos was unbelievably sexy and he wanted to lick them, he thought he rather understood the reasons behind them.

He slid his fingers back between Draco's and brought their linked hands to his mouth instead. He pressed a kiss against Draco's knuckles.

He didn't know how to say any of the numerous things that were swirling around in his head and heart — that he was glad that he'd gone back that day, that he was sorry he hadn't been able to save Crabbe, that he was honored Draco thought of him as brave, that he was proud of the changes Draco had made in his life, that he was shocked and amazed and beyond chuffed that Draco was here with him now — so he said nothing at all.

Draco lowered their linked hands back to his abdomen and bent to brush his lips against Harry's in acknowledgement. Harry frowned, despite the tingle even the chastest kiss from Draco sent rocketing through his blood.

"How'd you know what my Patronus was?"

"Prat. Everyone knows what your Patronus is." He rolled his eyes.

"Oh."

Harry settled back against Draco's chest, listening to his even breathing and the steady thump-thump-thump of his heart. His eyes had begun to grow heavy when he thought of another question. Whether he tensed in anticipation or Draco's strange magic alerted him, he felt the other man sigh.

"What?" Draco's sleepy, grouse-y voice tickled down Harry's spine.

"What's your Patronus?"

Draco buried his face momentarily against Harry's hair and groaned but Harry could hear the smile when he replied.

"Arctic fox. May I _please_ go to sleep now, Potter? I need to get my beauty rest if you're going to shag me rotten in the morning."

Harry squeezed him, nipping playfully at his nipple and enjoying the surprised squeak even as the mental image of him fucking Draco made the embers in his gut flare to life. He ignored it, nuzzling his lips against the tiny bite he'd inflicted.

The arctic fox suited Draco, he thought. Quick, clever, cunning, with all that white fur. Foxes were monogamous too, he remembered, and then paused to wonder how Hermione was feeding him all these weird, random facts that kept popping into his head.

Still, the thing about monogamy made him smile.

Though, he thought stags were rather less so, what with the whole rutting thing, so obviously that wasn't indicative.

"Go to sleep, Harry," Draco murmured. "You're thinking too loudly."

Harry sighed, letting the building warmth of their bodies pull him down toward sleep.

As he muttered his own _Nox Ignesco_ to extinguish the last candle, Draco's earlier words drifted back through his mind.

 _Go back far enough, change enough things, and we might have been friends earlier. But then would we really be us anymore, without those things?_

Harry didn't know the answer to that. He thought perhaps Draco was right, that it was all the small things that made up who they were, the choices they made, or didn't, the places they'd gone, the friends they made. Maybe all they were was a sum of their experiences, and the only thing that defined them was their actions.

But then, maybe there _were_ such things as Fates, and no matter what you did, you'd end up in a certain place, with certain people. He couldn't believe the entire course of everyone's life was predetermined, but maybe the final destination was… and perhaps a few intersections along the way.

Something about laying in Draco's arms, listening to his breathing even out and deepen into sleep as the night sky brightened toward dawn behind him, felt inevitable. As if they'd been moving toward this place since that moment he'd walked into Madam Malkin's.

And yet, it also felt as if it was the product of years of choices and circumstance steering them to this moment. That if, as Draco said, enough different turns had been taken, they wouldn't be here at all.

Fate? Or luck?

He tipped his head, brushing his lips against Draco's jaw.

"How did this happen?" He barely breathed the words, but of course Draco heard him. He snorted softly, his reply thick with sleep.

"Does it matter, really? We're here now. We'll figure out where we go from here tomorrow."

' _Where we go from here_ ', Harry thought with a thrill. Together. He smiled, mind ticking over a million things they could do. He'd never gone on a date with another Wizard. Oh, and wouldn't he and Draco actually being together sting Skeeter's nose? Or would it?

He should probably start by telling Hermione and Ron. After breakfast. And shagging.

Draco groaned.

"Sleep, Potter, or I will not be held accountable for my actions."

His warning tone was belied by the soft, sleepy kiss he pressed to Harry's lips and the gentle squeeze of his arms. Harry sighed, closed his eyes, and shut out all thoughts of what they would face tomorrow. He concentrated instead on the feel of Draco's body against him, the sleepy warm scent of his skin, and the slow cadence of his breath tickling against Harry's forehead.

Harry listened to the thump of Draco's heart, feeling his own once again match the other man's pace.

Tomorrow could bring whatever it would bring. Luck, or Fate. Here and now, there was only him and Draco. And that was just about perfect, either way.


End file.
